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Champions League draw brings Arsenal and Besiktas together
Arsenal now know who they must beat to qualify again for the Champions League, Turkish side Besiktas. So in light of this, here is what we need to look for:
Familiar Players
Demba Ba is the Besiktas player that most of you will know, having signed from Chelsea over the summer. The striker is dangerous and always poses a goal scoring threat, but this will be one of his first games if he plays. Jermaine Jones featured in this years World Cup for the USA, and scored one of his teams goals against Portugal. A lot of the other squad members have rarely played outside of Turkey, so their names don’t crop up too much in football conversations.
A young talent?
One of the players that could make an impact is 22 year old Gökhan Töre, and the football knowledge buffs amongst you will know he played his youth football with Chelsea before being deemed surplus to requirements. He is an extremely versatile midfield player who can play anywhere across the pitch, and scored 4 goals last year in 30 Besiktas appearances. I think he could have a great season this year, and will want to prove himself against top opposition.
European History
Live Feed
Bayern Strikes
Besiktas are currently ranked 59th in Europe, only 3 places above Celtic, so you would expect Arsenal to be turning over a team like this quite easily. However they do have a long history in the Champions League, having played a total of 66 games in the competition, winning 22 goal them. However their goal difference is -39 over that period, and that does also include qualifiers. As it is their best performance is a 1987 quarter final, when they lost to Dynamo Kiev 7-0 over the two legs.
All in all I think Arsenal should be winning this pretty easily, but Besiktas will work hard and look to get in the Arsenal player’s faces. So what are your predictions? Let us know below or on Facebook, Google+or Twitter.