Arsene Wenger confirms that Arsenal will prioritise the Premier League over Europe next season
Wenger has admitted that he will rest and rotate in the Europa League so that he can 'focus completely' on leading Arsenal to the Premier League title
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Your support makes all the difference.Arsene Wenger will rest and rotate in the Europa League this season so that he can “focus completely” on trying to win the Premier League.
Arsenal are starting their season in Europe’s secondary competition for the first time in 20 years, but Wenger will not be directing his resources towards winning, at least not for now. His priority is to improve on last season’s disappointing fifth-place Premier League finish. Even if that means not putting everything into Europe.
If being in the Europa League is slightly embarrassing for Arsenal, Wenger, ever the optimist, intends to turn that into a positive. “For us it is a good opportunity to focus completely on the Premier League,” Wenger said. “I would say that the Premier League has, in my opinion, taken over from the Champions League interest-wise.”
Arsenal’s season starts with the Community Shield on Sunday but on the 25 August they will know who they are facing in the Europa League group stage.
Arsenal will be seeded meaning that they will likely be preparing for long trips to Sheriff Tiraspol, Fastav Zlin and Zorya Luhansk this autumn. Wenger will not want to risk Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez – if they are still Arsenal players – for those games.
“I will always play a team that has a good chance to win the next game,” Wenger said. “In the Europa League if we can afford sometimes to rest some players we will do it. But we have to adapt to the level of the competition and see first what kind of group we play in.”
Of course if Arsenal win the final in Lyon on 16 May 2018 then they will be in the Champions League group stage for the 2018-19 season. That is what Manchester United did this year, having finished in sixth in the Premier League. But Arsenal are 14 games away from even reaching the Parc Olympique Lyonnais and Wenger knows that they cannot build this season around the hope that they will be there.
“You cannot go into the season and think that,” said Wenger, who explained why he did not even think it should be a route into the Champions League.
“I always was not in favour of that, because I think at some stage it can influence on the championship. Because if a team is in April in a position where they have more chance to win the Europa League they can let some games go in the championship, and not completely focus on that competition.”
EURWenger is certainly keenly aware that the last two Premier League champions – Chelsea in 2016-17 and Leicester City in 2015-16 – were not burdened by European football when they won their surprising titles. But with Chelsea, Sunday’s opponents, back in the Champions League this season, but Arsenal not in, this could be a more open title.
“Last year Chelsea did not play in the European Cup and certainly they were a bit more consistent [in the Premier League],” Wenger said. “Will they make as many points? I don’t know. But they will fight certainly for the championship again. You could expect that some teams will be stronger as well, and take points from them as well.”
“And in the FA Cup final we have shown that the gap was not as high maybe. And we have to show that again on Sunday.”
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