Easy win for Arsenal

Easy? how?

It's the hardest draw we could have had after Chelsea

Definitely not easy. I say it’s 50-50. The 2nd leg will be played at San Paolo and this means a lot for the italians. The atmosphere there is incredible in this kind of games.

Given how utterly shambolic Napoli are in Europa League like Inter where they will prioritise a dead-end match versus Venezia FC over a EL semi-final. Arsenal to go through given they have way more depth, Emery is the best EL coach of all time, they respect the competition and are just in better form along with a more dangerous attack.

I hope so given it would be nice to see Arsenal go far into the competition and Basque Beauty Emery win his fourth.

Napoli had already said they are going for the EL, they have the CL locked for next season, so they won't prioritize shit over this. Emery may be the best EL coach, but Carletto has won a couple of CL's in his time.

P.S. It's also going to be Sarri vs Napoli since Julio Cesar didn't want Pep versus Barca

flashes of the Atleti game last season, which should have been the final ffs. Harsh.

If the second match was at Emirates I would have said Arsenal to go through but as it stands, this will be a 50-50 as @Vlad the Impaler suggested.

Arquitescu wrote:Given how utterly shambolic Napoli are in Europa League like Inter where they will prioritise a dead-end match versus Venezia FC over a EL semi-final. Arsenal to go through given they have way more depth, Emery is the best EL coach of all time, they respect the competition and are just in better form along with a more dangerous attack.

I hope so given it would be nice to see Arsenal go far into the competition and Basque Beauty Emery win his fourth.

Doesn't Napoli having Carletto kinda counter this though? One could even say he gives them the edge given what he's accomplished in the CL, with far better teams admittedly. Emery's record in the EL is absolutely nothing to sniff at of course though.

Carlo is indeed obvious but not mentioned because the few times I seen experience his tenure in this (lower) competition he never really took it seriously with his squad or any sort of preparation and more experienced Italian managers are prone to this type of snobbery.

Napoli as a whole run by ADL absolutely despise the Europa League to which is ridiculous given its way above the stature of what it was and holds an element of prestige that should not be overlooked.

I don't really believe in this thing of not taking a competition seriously, especially an European one. It's not like you are a drug addict gambler and it also happens that you play for Napoli, but decide it's not worth giving your best to win Europa League. Football players at this level are highly professional and for most of their careers are training day in, day out, giving their best and looking forward to the next game with a lot of ambition regardless of the opponent or the competition.

It's not always working well for them and their teams aren't always performing as expected, but top managers and players never lower their ambitions for winning any trophy that comes their way.

I know we like to laugh and say stuff on the web, but most of the managers and players are true professionals, with very high salaries. They can't afford to do a superficial job. I am pretty sure Napoli wants this as much as Arsenal wants it, there's no doubt for me and the focus will be 100% for both.

I think it's the end of the road for us, we've been poor in all our knockout games this season, even the ones we've won have required some big comebacks at home which will not be the case in this game as we play away in the second game.

But we have the quality to end this in the first game with Lacazette/Özil returning so you'll never know, this is the final before the final.

Napoli is a better team, and its Carlo. They have spoken of finally taking EL seriously. If they play this like they played PSG or Liverpool they will advance.

Arquitescu wrote:Carlo is indeed obvious but not mentioned because the few times I seen experience his tenure in this (lower) competition he never really took it seriously with his squad or any sort of preparation and more experienced Italian managers are prone to this type of snobbery.

Napoli as a whole run by ADL absolutely despise the Europa League to which is ridiculous given its way above the stature of what it was and holds an element of prestige that should not be overlooked.

Sometimes is like you don't listen. They, including Ancelotti, said multiple times that they want to win it because they need to win some trophies. And it makes sense, it's the only thing that they have left to play for this season.

I disagree about its stature. It's still a second rate competition that a lot of fans don't care about and that it is meant only to give smaller teams something to feel happy about. Unfortunately, this is also going away. Third place finishers from group stages shouldn't be allowed to play in EL because they don't deserve it and they're also too strong for it. See Atletico, Sevilla and now Napoli. Or the bigger teams from EPL who never gave a crap about it until UEFA decided that the winner will get a CL spot for the following season. The parity and the quality of the competition are going down because it became a consolation prize for UCL losers or a means to get that 5th UCL spot

They are of course a far better team as our Serie A followers, like @rincon or @breva can attest to, but I don't think Napoli will win this. Out of their own choosing, because as we all know, they don't want to win the important games. They are a distraction from their strategic targets. Smart tbf.

How convenient from Serie A followers to always claim that these teams don‘t take EL as soon as they crash out.

Are you people retarded? Two people above you have mentioned that Napoli are taking the competition seriously this year.

adun101 wrote:Are you people retarded? Two people above you have mentioned that Napoli are taking the competition seriously this year.

They have also taken it seriously before this year, they just were beaten by better teams.

urbaNRoots wrote:

adun101 wrote:Are you people retarded? Two people above you have mentioned that Napoli are taking the competition seriously this year.

They have also taken it seriously before this year, they just were beaten by better teams.

Really? Last year they weren't even taking CL seriously, Sarri had mentioned that they were all in on Serie A. I doubt that they even bothered with EL.

The second leg being in Italy makes me far less confident about progressing. Not just because the San Paolo is a difficult ground, but also because our away record this season has been awful. It's been so bad we lost to BATE and Rennes ffs And even though we've kept two clean sheets in our last two home games (a rarity this season) I'll always be concerned about keeping Napoli out at the Emirates.

Then again, I think we've won 9 of our last 10 knockout ties against Italian teams, so that's something.

We were bound to play a difficult team at some point and I think the winner of this one goes on to play Chelsea in the final.

adun101 wrote:

urbaNRoots wrote:

adun101 wrote:Are you people retarded? Two people above you have mentioned that Napoli are taking the competition seriously this year.

They have also taken it seriously before this year, they just were beaten by better teams.

Really? Last year they weren't even taking CL seriously, Sarri had mentioned that they were all in on Serie A. I doubt that they even bothered with EL.

They weren't taking the most prestigious competition in the world after the PL seriously? for what? a 2nd place in Serie A lmao? because at no point they were ever going to win the Serie A ahead of Juve.

either he was delusional or it's just an excuse as usual.

adun101 wrote:

urbaNRoots wrote:

adun101 wrote:Are you people retarded? Two people above you have mentioned that Napoli are taking the competition seriously this year.

They have also taken it seriously before this year, they just were beaten by better teams.

Really? Last year they weren't even taking CL seriously, Sarri had mentioned that they were all in on Serie A. I doubt that they even bothered with EL.

Watch the games against Leipzig again, they desperately wanted to go through and almost did. It‘s just a convenient excuse for always crashing out in important games. Hopefully the same excuses will come out this year.

RealGunner wrote:

They weren't taking the most prestigious competition in the world after the PL seriously? for what? a 2nd place in Serie A lmao? because at no point they were ever going to win the Serie A ahead of Juve.

either he was delusional or it's just an excuse as usual.

It wasn't an excuse. Somebody had asked him about not resting players before some CL match and he said that their priority is Serie A. CL may be most prestigious competition in the world, but he thought they had a really good chance at winning Serie A. And they were basically winning, until Cuadrado and Higuain scored at San Siro.

adun101 wrote:

urbaNRoots wrote:

adun101 wrote:Are you people retarded? Two people above you have mentioned that Napoli are taking the competition seriously this year.

They have also taken it seriously before this year, they just were beaten by better teams.

Really? Last year they weren't even taking CL seriously, Sarri had mentioned that they were all in on Serie A. I doubt that they even bothered with EL.

It's pointless. Their president said not to care about EL, their coach said not to care, they came out with the bench. Non serie a watching GL: they cared. Sarri is terrible with depth, he didnt prepare the bench they had to play properly cause most were frozen out of the squad, so the team was not sharp enough for Europe + league.

Now with Carlo, and a giant gap for the scudetto, they said that unlike other years they want to make it their main objective. No excuses.

rincon wrote:

adun101 wrote:

urbaNRoots wrote:

They have also taken it seriously before this year, they just were beaten by better teams.

Really? Last year they weren't even taking CL seriously, Sarri had mentioned that they were all in on Serie A. I doubt that they even bothered with EL.

It's pointless. Their president said not to care about EL, their coach said not to care, they came out with the bench. Non serie a watching GL: they cared. Sarri is terrible with depth, he didnt prepare the bench they had to play properly cause most were frozen out of the squad, so the team was not sharp enough for Europe + league.

Now with Carlo, and a giant gap for the scudetto, they said that unlike other years they want to make it their main objective.

Absolute BS, they played hard against Leipzig last year, and almost made it through lmao. Keep the excuses coming.

Juve fans trying hard to prove that Serie A is the shit

urbaNRoots wrote:
Watch the games against Leipzig again, they desperately wanted to go through and almost did. It‘s just a convenient excuse for always crashing out in important games. Hopefully the same excuses will come out this year.

How about you actually pay attention to what you are watching? More than half of the team for the home game were backups.