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Nacho Monreal has stated that Arsenal must prioritise the Europa League this season. He understands the importance and the utility of the competition.
Arsenal travel to Azerbaijan on Thursday night to face Qarabag FK for their second Europa League match of the season. It is a match that they should win, although the travel will be awkward and they will have to do so without Henrikh Mkhitaryan because of tensions between Azerbaijan and his motherland, Armenia.
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The Europa League is a much-maligned competition. I have most certainly contributed to the slighting of the Champions League’s little sister. But that is perhaps a view that is a little shortsighted. The Europa League may not be the Champions League, but it is still a competition that Arsenal should be looking to win.
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And Nacho Monreal agrees. Speaking before Thursday’s trip to Qarabag, Monreal revealed his regret for failing to win the competition last season, in which a heartbreaking semi-final against Atletico Madrid ended Arsenal’s hopes of ending Arsene Wenger’s reign with a European trophy, and questioned why he and his teammates should not try to win it this year:
"“We missed a really good opportunity to win the Europa League. We would have qualified automatically for the Champions League and that was our target. This season, we start from the beginning of the competition, so we are going to try to qualify again for the Champions League through the Premier League, but we know we have the option to win the Europa League and qualify there. It is a good competition. We want to play, we want to fight until the end. Why not win the Europa League?”"
It is an extremely fair question to ask. While trying to challenge the might of Manchester City and Liverpool in the Premier League is all well and good in principle, it’s not exactly realistic for this current crop of players still adapting to new management. The Europa League is a far more achievable target.
Not only did Wenger engineer a late run in the competition last season, but Unai Emery, Wenger’s successor, won it three times in succession while with Sevilla. The Europa League is very ‘winnable’. And it should also be seen as an extremely attractive proposition.
As Monreal states, it is a direct route back into next season’s Champions League, a competition that all Arsenal fans are desperate to see their team return to, especially after seeing Spurs face Barcelona and Liverpool play Paris Saint-Germain already in this year’s group stages. But more than that, it is also a trophy, something that evaded the club last season and is far from guaranteed this year.
The Europa League is a vilified and criticised and maligned. And I am largely sick of the Thursday-Sunday schedule. But it does have great value. Monreal understands it. Perhaps it’s time some factions of the fanbase also did too.