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Arsenal intends to beat Girona in the Champions League with a full-strength squad, says Mikel Arteta.
If you thought that Mikel Arteta might rotate his Arsenal side against Girona in the Champions League due to one eye being on Manchester City at the weekend, you're sadly mistaken.
While the Gunners are in a great position to qualify for the next round, they still need to put their best foot forward to eliminate any doubt over whether or not they will book their spot in the next phase.
With City up next in the league at the weekend, there was a thought that Arteta might rotate his squad against a Girona side that has won just one of its seven league phase games, which in truth, sounds like a solid plan.
But as we know, Mikel rarely takes that sort of approach to a fixture, and as expected, he's coming to Spain to win.
"We’re here to win the game and in order to do that we’re going to have to be better than them," Arteta said via arsenal.com. "They’re a really good side, if you look at the games they’ve played in the Champions League against top opposition, they’ve made life very difficult for them. So it will be a very strong team in order to achieve what we want to do because mathematically the qualifying at the moment is uncertain."
Arteta isn't wrong, while Girona has only won one of its seven games and lost the other six, it has only conceded 11 goals, which is better than 14 other teams in the competition, so the hosts will make things difficult for Arteta's side.
This one can't be taken for granted and the Gunners must go ahead and take care of business and after winning back-to-back games after the Aston Villa draw, Arsenal is beginning to pick up steam after not conceding in either of its last two games.
Coming into a monster City clash at the weekend, taking care of Girona is the perfect warm-up to what looms as a colossal clash against Pep Guardiola's side at the Emirates.
Arsenal is in a great position to advance to the next phase and enjoy some much-needed rest between fixtures, and winning takes out any and all of the guess work regarding what might transpired over the couple of days.
Arteta is going to Spain to win, not to rest his squad.