Europa League Last 16 draw, 12pm GMT

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Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn

If we get through this tie, we have to play the quarter final tie on the 13th and 20th April. We have a fixture against Southampton on Friday 21st. Which means it gets rescheduled for 23rd meaning we are playing two games in six days prior to playing City on 26th

Or we have it rescheduled to god knows when, so you’ll forgive me for hoping we actually lose this tie

We’ve already had a massive wobble with few injuries…we have a thin squad short on depth…we need the Europa League like a Lego hip replacement


Also Fuck Arteta, any good will he built up with me has been lost with his insistence on keeping players in the team who aren’t up to snuff

Why is Zinchenko still starting? He reeks of goal costing errors. Why is Elneny getting another contract extension, why is Xhaka?. Central midfield is one of our biggest Achilles heels and we seem to be sleepwalking into a Liverpool situation without the enjoyment of having won a league title and a champions league first.

Absolutely nuts….both should be gone in the summer to facilitate a whole new central midfield coming in. Bring in Tielemans to replace Xhaka, bring in the Ecuadorean from Brighton to replace Elneny…wave bye bye to Lokonga (the only top flight league I can see him making it in is the Belgian one or Turkey).

No instead we are going to not bring in anyone in midfield and be stuck with Partey, Xhaka, Elneny and Jorginho (who I like but let’s be fair he’s not getting any younger).

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Yeah this. I am massively concerned about Central Midfield and what we plan to do with it this summer, extending Elneny seems like nothing more than a friendly token gesture from the Club....I absolutely hope it does not in anyway get in the way of our plans to bring in younger talent in an area that desperately needs it. Going into next season, the likes of Partey, Xhaka and Jorginho will be into their 30's, we need two younger central midfielders this summer unless we have plans to phase Xhaka out of the team with either Fabio Vieira or ESR. The long term Partey replacement sounds like it will be either Rice or Caicedo from Brighton, though completing a deal for either player will be difficult.

It was definitely a gesture of good will but I very much doubt the Elneny contract is going to impact on anything, he’s probably the lowest earner in the squad and will only play if needs be. By all accounts he’s an incredibly professional guy and Arteta must value that off the pitch influence.

I imagine we’ll be back for the CM this summer, unless Lokonga levels up which I very much doubt he will.

We tried to sign big, big players for midfield in January, we obviously will again in the Summer. Not worried about it at all.

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Originally Posted by IBK

Perhaps - but I think we have the tools to beat them, particularly if jesus is back and firing by the time we play them. We should have done so at OT but for another scandalous VAR decision, and we won at our place.

Re Europe - we may have shat the bed in the 2019 Europa final, but we were in the final, and our team is a lot better now than that version.

I think our manager and his team will want to win this....

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We had the Europa League master as our manager in 2019 (only Europa League final he's ever lost, btw :rolleyes: ).

We'll obviously see, but I'm not that confident or, indeed, bothered about it this year.