Arsenal’s only road to the Champions League

At the rate Arsenal’s Premier League season is currently going, I think our only shot at a Champions League spot for next season is by way of the Europa League. No question!

The Gunners are currently in 12th place in the PL, 11 points behind 4th place Chelsea. An Arsenal win yesterday would have closed that gap to 5 points, but that wasn’t meant to be, so here we are staring at a long climb back up the Premier League mountain to respectiblity. Never say never, but it’s a tall mountain to climb.

Now, if I were in charge I would put my focus, my money and my transfer plans into winning the Europa League. We can’t even depend on finishing 5th in the Premier League to qualify for Europa next season, so we might as well throw everything at that competition this season. It would surely help Arsenal regain some respect and confidence going forward into 2020-2021.

But, in order make this happen, Arsenal needs to make a few changes to the locker room.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post outlining which current Arsenal players should stay or go in January. Here’s the list of who should go and the undecideds…

Who should go…
Sokratis Papastathopoulos
Shkodran Mustafi
David Luiz
Mesut Ozil
Granit Xhaka

The undecideds…
Nicolas Pepe
Konstantinos Mavrapanos
Send Kolasinac

Yes, there have been changes to a few player’s status. For example…I just can’t get a handle on Pepe. The Gunners spent so much money last summer getting him on board, yet he hasn’t scored many goals, and now he can’t even break into the starting XI. Should Arsenal cut their losses and move on without Pepe, or will Arteta find some magic potion to get this guy going?

My other undecideds are Mavrapanos and Kolasinac. The first never plays, and the latter is inconsistent. Thoughts?

We have been linked with various players for January transfers. Here’s the list…

Dries Mertens – Napoli (forward)
Kalidou Koulibaly – Napoli (center back)
Moussa Dembele – Lyon (forward)
Adrien Rabiot – Juventus (midfielder)
Wilfred Ndidi – Leicester City (midfielder)
Thomas Partey – Atletico Madrid (defensive midfielder)
Dayot Upamecano – RB Leipzig (center back)
Thomas Lemar – Atletico Madrid (forward)

Obviously, we will need a lot of help and cover at the center back position, so my two choices in the January transfer market would be Upamecano and Koulibaly. If I got a third choice, I would take Partey.

Memo to the Arsenal executives:
Please put everything you have into winning the Europa League. It’s Arsenal’s only road to the Champions League!

Cheers. Gunner1953