Arsenal vs Dinamo Zagreb: Arsene Wenger will take Europa League seriously if Gunners fail in Champions League

Arsene Wenger has vowed to take the Europa League seriously should Arsenal crash out of the Champions League in the group stage, despite questioning why Dinamo Zagreb are still in the competition after one of their players was banned for a positive drugs test.

Arsenal must beat Zagreb at the Emirates on Tuesday night and hope that the other match in Group F, Bayern Munich vs Olympiakos, does not end in a draw in order to keep their qualification hopes alive until the final round of fixtures.

As things stand, Arsenal sit bottom of the group having lost three of their first four matches, but a 2-0 win over Bayern has given them an outside chance of progression.

The likely outcome though is that Arsenal will finish outside of the top two, meaning a third-place finish will drop them down to the second-tier Europa League competition. Premier League sides have, in the past, shown a certain level of disdain to the competition given their preference to the league campaign, but Wenger has stressed that he will give it his all should the club drop down to the Europa League.

"We would take the competition seriously - but we are not out (of the Champions League) yet," Wenger said at his pre-match press conference on Monday.

"I believe that this problem is exaggerated a little bit in England because we play Wednesday and Saturday, so it is the same as Thursday and Sunday. I can't see the difference.

"There are plenty of examples in Portugal and Spain where teams have taken it seriously and won the championship. Benfica are the example, Sevilla have done well."

Wenger was also quick to rule out the possibility of Bayern and Olympiakos intentionally playing out a draw in order to eliminate the north London side from the qualification picture.

"If Bayern don't win they could still be second in the group because they go to Zagreb where they can lose," he said.

"In front of their crowd they will want to win. That will be really Machiavellian to think they will deliberately lose to get us out."

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Tuesday night’s fixture sees Arsenal come up against the side that handed them their opening defeat of the European campaign. However, the fallout of that encounter saw Dinamo midfielder Arijan Ademi fail a drugs test, and he has subsequently been banned for four years by Uefa.

Wenger has since voiced his concerns over the level of doping in football and what is being done to combat the problem, and he questioned why the Croatian side hadn’t been thrown out of the competition despite his opposite number Zoran Mamic disagreeing with him.

"It's a surprising rule. Uefa applies the rule that is planned but I personally don't agree with the rule,” Wenger said.

"You cannot say that they had a doped player but the result stands. That means you basically accept doping."

However, addressing the idea of being banned from the Champions League, Mamic said: "Mr Wenger can think and talk about what he wants but there are other people who make decisions about that and that will be in the future.

"I can suggest him to write the rules for Uefa. I think this situation is not the point of this press conference so we don't need to talk about Ademi."

Ademi played all 90 minutes against Arsenal in the 2-1 victory back in September, but Uefa spokesman Pedro Pinto said that their ruling over positive drugs tests is in line with the World Anti-Doping Agency’s guidelines.

"Uefa's Anti-Doping regulations regarding the consequences for teams for doping offences are strictly in accordance with Article 11 of the Wada Code."