Arsene Wenger Adamant Europa League Will Not Hinder League Form

Arsene Wenger not seeking Europa League excuse…

Arsene Wenger is not prepared to accept the notion that the Europa League will affect our league form as we kick-off our campaign in Europe’s second-tier competition against FC Koln.

No team who’s competed in the tournament has finished higher than third in the Premier League, although Wenger doesn’t believe in its perceived distractions.

A Sunday fixture in the league follows almost all our group stage games, and Wenger believes the rest time is identical to what we; ve experienced int he Champions League.

Also, it seems the boss won’t be treating this competition too seriously during this stage, with the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Granit Xhaka and Mesut Ozil given the day off.

“It is a good opportunity to show we can cope,” Wenger said ahead of the game against Koln.

“We played Wednesday night in Barcelona and Saturday morning at Everton [in March 2016] and we won. 

“You have to not get caught in your mind with preconceived ideas, football is down to how you perform on the day.

“Three days is plenty of time to recover. Wednesday night or Thursday night is no problem.”

Wenger appears desperate to remove the possibility of such an excuse from the player’s minds ahead of Sunday’s trip to Chelsea, and ground at which we’re routinely humiliated.

The Blues played on Tuesday in the Champions League and will have extra rest by the time we face them this weekend, although that didn’t seem to play a part when it worked in our favour ahead of the trip to Liverpool.

source: ESPN FC