Arsenal: One clear goal dripping from every mouth

Lucas Torreira has been talking this week about the importance of qualification for the Champions League. It is the one goal dripping out of every pore of Arsenal football club.

Arsenal are in their second season without Champions League football. The elite European competition is the pinnacle of club football, the one tournament that every club dreams of being in. For the Gunners not to be present after featuring in it every year for more than a decade, it is a little odd.

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So when Arsene Wenger was asked to resign in the summer, the immediate statement of intent from the club was to regain Champions League status, ideally from finishing in the top four and showing progress in the Premier League, but if not, via winning the Europa League.

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This week, Lucas Torreira has been talking to Sky Sports about his first season in north London, how he feels the year has gone and what he and his teammates must do between now and the end of the campaign. During the extended interview, which is well worth your while, he cannot stop talking about Champions League and qualifying for next season’s Champions League. Here is just a snippet:

"“Qualifying is something which is very much on our minds. The squad is focused on qualifying for the Champions League because a big club like Arsenal deserves to be in that competition <…> That’s going to be important up against some very good sides in the race for the Champions League places.”"

I think there has been a very clear and purposeful focus on the Champions League this season. For a player to speak so plainly, bluntly an openly about qualification being a goal, that suggests to me that it has been a point that has been hammered home in training, meetings and dressing room speeches throughout the season.

Unai Emery has been tasked with leading Arsenal out of the Wenger era. It is not an enviable responsibility. And I believe that for him it all starts with getting back into the Champions League, because of both the pedigree of the competition and the financial windfall that is enjoyed because of it.

By listening to Torreira speak and by how much emphasis he gives to the Champions League, I believe that this is a message that is dripping out of every pore at the club. Every mouth is signing from the same, Champions League-obsessed hymn sheet.

It is the one clear goal of the season: Qualify for the Champions League. There is now just one thing left to actually do. Achieve it.