Unai Emery has hinted that Bernd Leno will replace Petr Cech in goal when Arsenal open their Europa League campaign against Ukrainian side Vorskla on Thursday.
The £22 million signing from Bayer Leverkusen has been on the bench for all five of the Gunners Premier League games so far but is expected to be handed his competitive debut as part of a rotated side.
Despite promising that more players will see action, Emery made clear that Arsenal will take their second successive season in UEFA’s second-tier competition seriously and is unlikely to make wholesale changes to his lineup.
“We are going to change and use a lot of players for different competitions, but only thinking about the best performance for us to win on Thursday,” said the Spaniard after Saturday’s win over Newcastle.
“Every competition for me is about [doing as well as you can] and normally you use a different goalkeeper in those [other] competitions, but it’s about giving [your best] performance.”
Emery has a strong relationship with the Europa League having won it three times during his time at Sevilla.
“After the Champions League, the Europa League is the most important competition,” he noted on Friday.
“If teams cannot play in the Champions League, it is very important. When we opened this possibility that, when you win the Europa League, you play in the Champions League, it was the key to improve the interest in this competition.
He added: “I have proven with my experience to know the best way to manage the players [in the Europa League]. My idea first isn’t to change 11 players for one competition and the next competition. Each match is giving us information for how we can play.”
In addition to Leno, it’s expected that the likes of Rob Holding, Stephan Lichtsteiner, Mohamed Elneny and Danny Welbeck will also get vital playing time in the coming weeks.
Hoping his team settles in the coming months and next year he can put his footprint on it
I actually liked the front three of Auba-Micki-Iwobi at Chelsea.
Lots of rotation please, we need to get the rest of the squad playing. And save the energy of most of the first team.
I agree. The more rotation for this match, the better. If Kolasinac was fit I could see a completely changed XI. But with no back-up left back, Monreal will probably have to keep his place. As for the rest … I think we could quite handily win with this:
Leno
Lichtsteiner, Mavropanos, Holding, Monreal
Elneny, Willock
Mkhitaryan, Iwobi, Welbeck
Nketiah
I think he should try to rest Monreal since he is the only recognized leftback available. What if he gets injured and not available for Sunday’s game? I understand injury can happen anytime but if we have opportunities to minimize them, then we should do it….it’s not like we r at the knockout stage already and must play our first XI.
Just draft in someone from under 23 team for left back please.
Leno
Lichtsteiner – Holding – Mavropanos – Osei-Tutu
Torreira – Elneny
Iwobi – Mkhitaryan – Welbeck
Nketiah
Subs: Martinez, Mustafi, Bellerin, Guendouzi, Willock, Smith-Rowe, Aubameyang (Amaechi)
I’d rotate the sh*t out of this team for these fixtures. It’s a mess that we’re not in the CL again but I’d try everything to benefit from that situation as much as possible and if we can rest our most important players over the week we should definitely do that. The above team should be good enough to beat a team that’s worth less than Leno alone.
Agree! Would really love to see Smith-Rowe get decent game time too.
Yep, if everything goes according to plan i’d sub Torreira for Guendouzi between ht and the 60th minute, Smith Rowe for Mkhitaryan around the 65th minute and Willock for Iwobi for the last 15 to control the game. I’d then like to see Guendouzi playing the most advanced of the 3 midfielders with Elneny and Willock behind him. If you play him as a kind of number 10 he will have to make quicker decisions as he will have less time on the ball, I think it would benefit his progress and I also think he has the vision to… Read more »
I’d love to See Guendouzi and Torreira line up together here and see how it works (it could be our midfield of the future for long time) and then give Torreira the start with Xhaka on Sunday and Guendouzi to the bench.
I must admit that traveling from Norfolk for this competition isn’t very appealing, although I did do to the Cologne thing and all the ones after we qualified for the last bit last year. Having seen West Ham today made me feel less stupid for thinking they were much better against us this year than last. Theo did some running and got offside too.
Even changing 11 players i can see a very strong team:
LENO
LICH HOLDING MAVROS NILES
TORRIERA ELNENY
GUENDOUZI (i expect Torriera to use the 90 to then take his spot in the Prem.
MIKI IWOBI
WELB
only a quick draft so tweet as you will guys 🙂
Niles is injured buddy.
what are you smoking, even our first eleven is mid table at best
I am a bit worried about our depth out wide. Iwobi clearly needs some game time but perhaps we are going to be giving some time to smith-rowe? We cant afford any injuries in that department at all.
Should have kept ‘Nelson’
He wouldn’t have signed a new contract for 6 el appearances. Look forward to having him back next year. Our first free transfer of the summer it will be like.
I think we will see a good amount of peripheral players involved. Its group stage in europa against frankly very modest opposition. Still remember those voices clamouring for us to fall out of top 4 and win the europa. Now the same pundits harp on about the importance of the ‘top 4 trophy’. Win the Europa what a laugh. Not so easy either. But we should have enough to get through group stage. Expect Welbeck, Elneny, Torreira, Lichsteiner, Mhkitaryan, Iwobi to have a start along with Leno, Holding. A blend of some first team players may still be involved like… Read more »
Really curious to see how Emery approaches these games. I remember that last year’s group stage games were really frustrating as our spare players firstly didn’t seem to gel together and secondly looked like they weren’t briefed on any plan whatsoever how to move the ball forward.
Here’s me hoping it’s better this year!