Arsenal vs Chelsea: Not do or die, but pretty damn close

Arsenal have a massive match up ahead, but it’s not like it’s a do or die match. This is still early days. Of course, we better win though.

Arsenal and Chelsea is just up ahead, the two English clubs clashing in the Europa League final. For the Gunners, this represents a huge opportunity to sneak into the Champions League despite missing a huge opportunity to do the same by finishing in a wide-open top four.

For Unai Emery, it’s a competition he has extensive experience with, winning it three times with Sevilla.

It’s just a match that has a lot stacked up on it, a lot riding on it. Spending another year in the Europa League would be similar to a nightmare, as the Gunners are far too good, far too proud, to be confined to the second tier of European competitions for another year.

All that said, and without wanting to downplay the importance of this match, it isn’t exactly do or die, is it? It’s not like this is the big pay-off of an ongoing project that, without it, the project will be a failure.

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It’s not like there will be a mass exodus if we don’t win, or that the team will have to hit the reset and completely restructure the team.

None of that. No matter what happens in the match, Unai Emery’s era is still too early to pass judgement on. He’s still building. And while adding a Europa League trophy this early on would be a massive triumph, it wouldn’t be a sudden dealbreaker if he didn’t.

Not just that, but nobody is going to leave the club because of it. This isn’t Tottenham, who have spent years trying to build a trophy-winning club and continue to fail. This is the Arsenal, where everyone knows what’s coming – glory. It’s just a matter of time.

And it won’t affect what players we can attract in the transfer market either. Raul Sanllehi is spot on in making that assessment. We got Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, as elite a player as they come, when we were buried in the Europa League, and he’s asserting how he wants to be a club legend without knowing how this is all going to pan out.

Obviously we want to win. It would show that we are further along in the rebuild than anticipated, and reaffirm what talent is on this squad, but don’t get too nuts-o about this result being life or death. It’s not. Emery is here, he’s building, and there is so much more to look forward to beyond this one match.