With the start of the Europa League upon us, how will Unai Emery and his squad cope with the additional demands of playing three games per week?
Our head coach is confident he has the players to cope with these demands and this is what he told the media ahead of our game against Vorskla:
on team selection…
For me, every match, each moment, is about finding the best performance with the players. We have four competitions this season. Tomorrow is the Europa League, Sunday is Premier League, then it’s Carabao Cup and then we’re going to play in FA Cup. I want the same thing for every player because each match is important. The second situation is that we need to give minutes to the players who can produce the best performance for us. The best 11 will play tomorrow so that we can continue to improve in our way both tactically and individually. What’s important for us is to produce a winning performance but also to continue to improve.
on how he approaches three games in a week…
I told the players the same thing that I’ll tell you. The Premier League is the first competition because it’s giving us a big responsibility, maybe bigger than the others, in the season. There are 38 matches, so your first analysis is like this. Other competitions are very important too. Today, we are only thinking about giving our supporters the first performance and a good 90 minutes on the pitch at the Emirates. We are excited about every match. I want to give the players the same excitement when they are at the Emirates. Then we are going to think about Sunday. First is tomorrow. Tomorrow we are going to change things to give players the opportunity to find minutes, to find confidence on the pitch and then maybe tomorrow’s players can play on Sunday too.
on winning Europa again...
Every title for us is very important. In 2000, Arsenal played the final against Galatasaray but didn't win. And also, Arsenal played the final in 2006 in the Champions League and also didn't win. In my career, the ambition is very important for continuing to improve and continuing to achieve the objectives in my career personally and with the team. I want to play for every title going forward.
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