Simply not necesssary, group stages of EL are always a piece of piss, we should absolutely be rotating in most/all group games and going full strength in the PL matches. No need to field a full strength team in the EL until we’re on the other side of Christmas.
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Competition has been downsized now so the quality of team in it is higher than in the past. Not saying we still won’t be favourites to get out of our group but definitely a higher standard or competition now
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Depends on the draw as well, if we draw opponents that Leicester did last season; I am absolutely going with the best 11.
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He’s not a player I’d use in the knockouts. EL group stage, league cup against scrubbers is fine for his ability level
He’s not going to the WC so we’ll need fresh depth after the return
@Trion if you find yourself using starters in the EL group stage in a condensed season that’s a huge failure of squad management. Arsenal will be a first seed so a “tough” group is unlikely
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I agree, play him against some Bulgarian team…
…and leave him there.
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Finishing top of your Europa League group means you avoid an extra 2 legged tie. I think teams who finish 3rd in their CL group play an additional knockout round against teams who finished 2nd or 3rd in their Europa League group. Something like that anyway.
I don’t think we need to be going full strength in those group games to finish top but neither can we be throwing in the likes of Patino on the regular. Has to be a decent mix and given the lack of outgoings, I expect to see guys like Torreira, Bellerin, AMN, Mari etc pull their weight in those games. Definitely should be resting Jesus, Partey and the other key players though.
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Yep competition has downsized so if you win your group there is one less round than usual. Second place plays a third place CL team.
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Weirdly we never really had too much trouble in group stages, even back in the Champions League days.
And we never feared rotating heavily in them as well.
Arsenal, European Group Stage legends!
If Wenger was still about I’d believe any conspiracy theory about us trying to come second for the matchday revenue boost
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Oh I didn’t know this.
Now I am even more sure about fielding strong lineup to come top of group
To clarify (Europa League):
If you finish 2nd you play a playoff 2 legged game against CL 3rd place
If you finish 3rd you drop to the Conference League and play a playoff 2 legged game against Conference 2nd place.
These fixtures occur in February.
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I have to disagree a little here.
When we were last in it it was a 48 team group stage and now it’s 32, then 16 removed are largely junk thrown into the Europa Conference.
Also the reward for coming top is more significant than usual, an essential bye through to the round of 16 avoiding a tie vs a 3rd place CL team just to make it…
Yeah we’ll likely be one of the top 3 or 4 teams on paper in the EL, but play junk like Mari and we could find ourselves in a pickle trying to finish top.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t fully aware of changes to the structure of the competition, or was aware but have forgotten, having just had a year out.
I’ll happily wait til the groups are drawn and we can assess the difficulty of the group and what kind of line ups we need to play.
I can’t post this in Saka’s thread because the last 3 posts there are mine ffs.
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Arteta on the incomings:
We do have a number, I cannot share it.
Interesting answer. That implies >1 to me. :hipster:
They are saying his current wage is 70k but I’ve seen it widely reported as 30.
140 should get his signature you’d have thought.
I think it may have started there but perhaps given certain goals an automatic raise is made.
Makes sense if that’s the case. Makes the players work for it without having to renegotiate a new deal.
I dread to think how complex the terms of modern day contracts are. The ones in Football Manager are complicated enough, so much so that I’ve had to hire an admin assistant so I can concentrate on training and match preparation.
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PREM SOURCE TM
This belongs somewhere high up on a list of most pointless tweets to have ever been written when it comes to football transfers.
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