Arsenal: How should Unai Emery approach the Europa League?

Arsenal head coach Unai Emery played a strong team throughout the Europa League campaign last season. Is it time for him to take a different tack next year?

Next year, Unai Emery will be entering his second season as Arsenal‘s head coach. He will have again have a major decision on his hands regarding the way he approaches the Europa League.

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With the appointment of Freddie Ljungberg to the first-team coaching staff, it seems that the younger players at the club will be given more of a chance to prove themselves this upcoming year. Emery could — and perhaps should — choose to take advantage of this in the domestic cups and the Europa League.

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Arsenal will head into their third consecutive season having to play games on Thursdays. Last season, Emery chose to field stronger sides throughout the first four matches of the group stage of the Europa League. It wasn’t until qualification for the knockout stages was guaranteed that he chose to give starts to Joe Willock, Bukayo Saka and Eddie Nketiah, with only Emile Smith-Rowe starting earlier in the competition. This meant that prominent players such as Nacho Monreal, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Sokratis continued to feature in both the Europa League and the Premier League, leading to a lacklustre performance from the players towards the end of the season.

However, Emery’s first team this season should have a new look with younger players having a more prominent role, and he should use the Europa League as a chance to showcase the young talent who will be dying to prove their worth and crack into the first team regularly. The younger players who featured last season should start continuously, while other players such as Jordi Osei-Tutu, Zach Medley, Ben Sheaf, Xavier Amaechi and Krystian Bielik should be given chances, granted they aren’t sent out on loan.

The team should have enough quality in its youngsters interspersed with reserve senior players to secure qualification into the knockout stages. Not only will playing the young talent not put Europea League success in jeopardy, it will also provide them with precious first-team experience and all important, first-team starters to rest midweek earlier in the season, preserving them for later in the year.

The young players will be able to prove that they have the quality to progress to the next stage, or they will prove that they are not ready and Emery will recognise they need to be loaned out or moved on from the club. Either way, a greater understanding of the actual talent at the club, positively or negatively, will be gained.

Combine the talent coming through the youth academy with the potential of new young signings arriving in the transfer window and Arsenal should ease onto the knockout stages. And even if they don’t move through to the knockout stages, while not ideal it gives them the chance to focus solely on progressing in the Premier League, which most fans would argue is preferable.

Emery’s pedigree could prove to be an issue, but if he is smart, he will give Arsenal’s youth a chance in the Europa League next season.