Standard Liege vs Arsenal LIVE result: Young Gunners fight back to knock out Standard and seal top spot
Follow all the action live from the Stade Maurice Dufrasne
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Your support makes all the difference.Follow all the reaction live as Arsenal‘s youngsters beat Standard Liege in the Europa League.
Freddie Ljungberg’s side only needed to avoid defeat to guarantee their qualification for the knockout stages and came into the fixture riding a wave of momentum after the interim head coach secured the first win of his tenure against West Ham last weekend.
Konstantinos Mavropanos, Joe Willock, Bukayo Saka, Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe all started for the Gunners, who defeated the Belgian side 4-0 in the reverse fixture in October., as they drew 2-2 to finish top of the group. Follow all the reaction below:
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What time does it start?
Standard Liege vs Arsenal kicks off at 5.55pm on Thursday 12 December.
Can I stream it?
The game will be available to live stream via the BT Sport app on your laptop, smartphone or tablet. Subscribers will also be able to watch it on BT Sport 2. Coverage starts at 5.30pm.
Prediction
It looks like the Londoners may have stumbled upon a winning formula in the victory against West Ham, having lost their previous encounter against Brighton in an embarrassing 2-1 home defeat. There’s a lot of work to be done but on account of the attacking fluidity seen at the London Stadium on Monday night, there’s no reason to believe Arsenal can’t get the job done against Standard Liege. Confidence levels should be back on the up too. A tricky, hard-fought 90 minutes await, but I’m backing Arsenal to edge it.
Standard Liege 1-2 Arsenal
Odds
Standard Liege: 5/2
Draw: 14/5
Arsenal: 19/20
Hello and welcome along to our live coverage of Standard Liege vs Arsenal.
Arsenal have all but confirmed their progression to the next stages of the Europa League. They are top of Group F with 10 points from the first five games.
Eintracht Frankfurt are second with nine but they play Vitoria Guimaraes who are bottom of the group.
Arsenal's opponents tonight are Standard Liege who could progress with victory over Arsenal but only if Frankfurt lose as well.
After a tough time of things in the Premier League of late, Freddie Ljungberg's Arsenal can top Group F with a win tonight.
Only a 5-0 defeat will stop them from progressing so they're pretty safe.
Arsenal earned their first victory since the 24th October on Monday as they came from behind to beat West Ham 3-1.
The club is still searching for a long term replacement for sacked manager Unai Emery and current interim boss Freddie Ljungberg says he has not had a conversation about it.
"It's not a conversation I've had with the bosses," Ljungberg said.
"My job is to go from day to day, game to game, to try to help this fantastic club. That's what I try to do. All of those decisions are up to the top dogs.
"What the club decides to do, or who they choose, it is totally up to them but I stay totally out of it."
Arsenal haven't lost back-to-back games in the Uefa Cup/Europa League in a single season since 1996/97 when they lost twice to Borussia Monchengladbach.
Last time out Arsenal lost 2-1 at the Emirates to Eintracht Frankfurt and will be at risk of going out of the competition if they lose by more than four goals against Standard Liege tonight.
The last time Arsenal failed to make it out of the group stages of a major European competition was in 2002/03 when they were knocked out of the Champions League.
Since then they've played in 16 European group stages, Champions League and Europa League, making it through each one.
Tonight should be a formality for the Gunners but in football you just never know and Arsenal will want to perform well and get the three points.
Freddie Ljungberg makes nine changes to the Arsenal side that beat West Ham in their last Premier League outing.
Defenders Sokratis and Maitland-Niles are the only players to retain their places in the starting XI as Ljungberg elects to rest some of his main stars.
Arsenal's academy graduates Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe get the nod to start tonight and they'll be looking to impress ahead of a packed Christmas/New Year domestic schedule.
Winning the group has suddenly become a more important task with both Inter Milan and Ajax dropping into the Europa League after last night's Champions League ties.
Arsenal will secure top spot with a win. Man Utd, who play later, need just a point to top their group and Wolves are in with a shot of topping Group K as well.
Topping the group will give the teams more favourable opponents in the next round.
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