Europa League Last 16 draw, 12pm GMT

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Group winners (seeded)

Arsenal (ENG)
Betis (ESP)
Fenerbahçe (TUR)
Ferencváros (HUN)
Feyenoord (NED)
Freiburg (GER)
Real Sociedad (ESP)
Union Saint-Gilloise (BEL)

Play-off winners (unseeded)

Juventus (ITA)
Leverkusen (GER)
Manchester United (ENG)
Roma (ITA)
Sevilla (ESP)
Shakhtar (UKR)
Sporting CP (POR)

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We can't draw Man Utd. Fairly interesting otherwise.

[Marc Overmars]

Well we’re definitely in for a difficult tie looking at those teams.

Would quite like Juve, haven’t played them since the 2006 CL run.

[Mac76]

it's funny, most of the unseeded ones look better than the seeded ones, although I say that having watched very few of them recently...

I'd love to stick it to Shakhtar after they messed us around over Mudryk

[Marc Overmars]

We’ve got Sporting Lisbon.

Let’s fugging go.

[HCZ_Reborn]

I absolutely couldn’t give a shit about this competition. At best, the chance of winning it would be a consolation prize if we don’t win the league…but apart from that it’s a distraction. And it’s additional fixtures we don’t need

[McNamara That Ghost...]

I got the time wrong. :rose:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

I absolutely couldn’t give a shit about this competition. At best, the chance of winning it would be a consolation prize if we don’t win the league…but apart from that it’s a distraction. And it’s additional fixtures we don’t need

Going out of competions goes so well for us normally.

[Marc Overmars]

It’s an extra 7 games at most. If we’re not capable of dealing with that we have no business calling ourselves a top club. Ask any United right now if they care about playing so many games?

No good has ever come to us from exiting competitions in the name of the greater good. It always backfires miserably because winning is winning and losing is losing, these things have knock on effects.

Barring a disaster we’ll be back in the CL next season, so I’d say we better get used to European competition again.

[GP]

I desperately want to win this.

[Mac76]

I absolutely couldn’t give a shit about this competition. At best, the chance of winning it would be a consolation prize if we don’t win the league…but apart from that it’s a distraction. And it’s additional fixtures we don’t need

I like the European games at the Emirates - the away fans are always really up for it and it's interesting to see different teams

I feel the pressure is off as it's not (hopefully) going to dictate whether we're in Champions League and I'd be happy to see a bit of rotation even if it means some of the games will be trickier

hopefully our need to really concentrate on the league might make Arteta think he can change things round a bit - but then again this is Arteta we're talking about...

[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).

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

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).

A fair analysis.

But like the others have pointed out, there is no evidence that going out of cups helps us in any way, in fact recent times show its the opposite effect it has.

I don't think Sporting is an easy tie anyway and I do think Arteta will probably underestimate them and field a weakened squad, in short I don't have high hopes for this competition... though with Barca out we really should be a shoo-in to win it.

[Marc Overmars]

A fair analysis.

But like the others have pointed out, there is no evidence that going out of cups helps us in any way, in fact recent times show its the opposite effect it has.

I don't think Sporting is an easy tie anyway and I do think Arteta will probably underestimate them and field a weakened squad, in short I don't have high hopes for this competition... though with Barca out we really should be a shoo-in to win it.

I would say United are far more likely to win this than we are.

[GP]

I would say United are far more likely to win this than we are.

How come? We're beter than them.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

I would say United are far more likely to win this than we are.

I sadly agree, but what I meant is we are the only team left currently leading a top league in Europe...on paper we are suppose to be better than the rest, which includes Man U.

[IBK]

I would say United are far more likely to win this than we are.

Yeh - why do you think that mate?

[Chippy]

I sadly agree, but what I meant is we are the only team left currently leading a top league in Europe...on paper we are suppose to be better than the rest, which includes Man U.
We've got bigger fish to fry. I would be putting out weaker teams in the Europa League and focus 100% on the Premier League.

[Marc Overmars]

Yeh - why do you think that mate?

I feel like they will place more emphasis on this than we will, given the respective league positions.

Plus we’ve been useless in Europe for decades and I won’t believe that’s about to change until…it does.

[IBK]

I feel like they will place more emphasis on this than we will, given the respective league positions.

Plus we’ve been useless in Europe for decades and I won’t believe that’s about to change until…it does.

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....

[Marc Overmars]

I hope we go for it because I don’t really see it impeding our title challenge, unless we get horribly unlucky with injuries but that could happen at any time anyway.

I think if we want to be a winning team then cup competitions should not be viewed as a hindrance. We binned the domestic cups which I’ll accept for this season as we’re challenging for the title but European glory is something I’ll never turn my nose up at. It’s 6 games from here to the final. It’s more than doable but we’ll see in a couple weeks how Arteta sees it against Sporting.

[selassie]

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).

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.

[Marc Overmars]

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.

[GP]

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

[WMUG]

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....

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.