Having suffered defeat in last season’s final, Arsenal will be hoping it is a case of third season lucky as they start their new Europa League campaign away to Eintracht Frankfurt, who reached the last four last season.
Team news
Embed from Getty ImagesEintracht Frankfurt could be without Sebastian Rode and Goncalo Paciencia due to respective injury issues.
Marco Russ (Achilles), Mijat Gacinovic (groin) and Jonathan De Guzman (undisclosed) are ruled out.
Arsenal have no fresh injury concerns as Alexandre Lacazette remain out until October with an ankle injury.
Kieran Tierney, Hector Bellerin, Rob Holding and Konstantinos Mavropanos are all back in training but aren’t fit enough to make the first team squad.
Stat Attack
- This is Arsenal’s first meeting with Eintracht Frankfurt.
- Arsenal have won two of their last three meetings with teams that they were facing for the first time, although they lost their last first time meeting when were defeated 3-1 in Rennes in March.
- Eintracht Franfurt’s semi-final performance last season was their best in Europe since winning the UEFA Cup in 1980.
Prediction
After blowing a two goal lead on Sunday, Arsenal need to produce a better performance than the ‘scared’ second-half display against Watford but Frankfurt are a impressive team who can be troublesome on their day as Chelsea discovered last season.
In all honesty, I can’t see anything other than a draw because Arsenal’s defending will let them down like it has done already on a few occasions this season, although their attack is just as strong as last season.
Prediction: Eintracht Frankfurt 1-1 Arsenal
Result: Eintracht Frankfurt 0-3 Arsenal