Your View: Arsenal’s European task after UCL group stage draw
Less than a day after completing their cruise past Celtic to book a place in the Champions League’s group stage, the Gunners learned their fate earlier today.
Yet again, Wenger’s men have been handed a seemingly manageable task in Europe’s elite competition with Dutch champions AZ Alkmaar, Greek champions Olympiacos and Belgian contenders Standard Liege making up Group H.
But despite being confident, Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis will not dare to underestimate any of these opponents.
Especially when complacency has seen the Gunners finish second in the group stage for the past two seasons.
“Some might look at it (Group H) and see it as an automatic pass but we don’t see it like that,” Gazidis said.
“We think it will be very tough. But we won’t lose our focus. We have a very determined group.”
“It is good to have relatively short travel times and we would like to get off to a good start (at home to Standard Liege). We would also like to qualify as early as we can out of the group phase.”
There is no denying that Wenger and his men welcomed this trio of teams with open arms once the draw was made, but how do you really see Arsenal contesting in the Champions League group stage?
Let your views be heard.
easy group for all english clubs. Cant wait to see the inter-barca and madrid – milan matchups!!! i cant wait for the action to start. and i am confident we will win something this year!!! Vermaelen and Arshavin are going to be the difference makers this year!! Champions leauge GLORY isnt out of reach just keep the faith
if we can thrash liege (we have what it takes for sure) in this first game i think we could utterly destroy this group and break a few scoring records along the way. i mean you can really see us scoring at least 3 in each home game and don’t tell me we aren’t good enough to bang in some goals away from home. as long as we don’t take them too lightly and play seriously we are going to blitz it. win the first 3 or 4 games and first is ours with games to spare.
cant wait for the season to rumble in the jungle starting on saturday 5:00pm by hopefully beating united 3-1 im going for arshavin 2, van persi.. COME ON U GUNNERS!!
I can’t have any real fears from this group. The most intimidating away match is probably Olympiacos, and we’ve shown how we can deal away in the UCL, a la Celtic and Fenerbache.
None of these teams are stronger mentally or physically than us, and I can’t really see any way we won’t win this group.
Only problem is under-estimation, and I don’t think AW will allow that, so nope, no worries here.
Round of 16 here we come!
quite easy..expect large score lines..ARSHAVIN TO SCORE FIVE IN GROUP STAGES..DIVING AINT NEW..WHY THE CALL FOR EDUARDO BAN?
Eduardo ban won’t hurt us to bad with Vela and Theo hopefully back. If anything it will keep him healthy and ready for the EPL.
Saturday can’t come quick enough. I hope we thrash em. 3-1
arsenal and man utd got the easiest groups by a mile! lol! they will both sail past the group stages and hopefully arsenal will score lots of spectacular goals to get their confidence sky high for future matches btw why are people trying to get eduardo banned! it annoys me so much, ronaldo dives! drogba dives! they all dive a lot more than eduardo. but now just cos its arsenal he might get banned!!!(it wouldnt have made a difference to the result enyway, celtic played like a sack of shit!)
I reckon it will be 3-2 on saturday arshavin will definitely score nd eduardo van persie and/or fabregas(depending on hus playing) nd i think rooney nd nani will score(bad times)
The Arsenal will qualify to the 2nd round of the Champion League. With the qualities that we have, anything less is disaster. Not being arrogant but its a fact.
Edu, can rest these games. We won’t miss him, but he will be well rested for the EPL matches to follow..meaning he will be sharp! The group stage games will be a training exihibition for Arsenal! We must win all games without a doubt!
Never underestimate your opponent! I don’t think we ever have.
I’m just hoping, Rosicky is back and injury free for the rest of the season (Don’t forget, Nasri). Minor set backs will probably happen but I wish him the best!!!
Let’s go get Man U. next!
Go Arsenal!