European football competitions resumes once again this week and Arsenal Football Club will be hosting Sporting Lisbon on Thursday, 8th of November 2018, at the Emirates Stadium. In fact, The Gunners will be looking to secure place in the knock-out stages of the competition when they face Sporting tonight.
Unai Emery boasts a perfect record in Europa League this season. Starting with 4-2 home win over Vorskla Poltava before beating Qarabag 3-0 and Sporting 1-0 on the road, means another three points tonight will guarantee their spot in the next round.
Arsenal will also be looking to stretch their unbeaten run to fifteen matches as Sporting travels to London in tough circumstances. They visitors sacked Gaffer Jose Peseiro after poor run of results last week and they will have youth team coach Tiago Fernandes at helm at the Emirates against Arsenal.
Tiago guided Sporting to a 2-1 victory over Santa Clara in the Primeira Liga at the weekend though he has much of difficult task of trying to get some result against Arsenal.
‘As manager of Sporting, every game you play with this team is to win,’ Tiago Fernandes said.
‘I do what the chairman has asked me and tomorrow I will do the same as I have throughout the week. I have had help from the players.
‘That motivates me and I have happiness to represent this team in the competition and to manage players with this quality.’
TEAM NEWS
Arsenal had defensive duo of Nacho Monreal and Sokratis Papastathopoulos taking part in training ahead of tonight’s bow. Though Unai Emery has confirmed that Nacho won’t have any role to play – we can still expect to see Sokratis in the heart of the defence.
Mohamed Elneny will face a late fitness test.
Club captain Laurent Koscielny has returned to full training but won’t be rushed into game time and his return will be ‘calmly’ dealt with. Konstantinos Mavropanos is yet on sidelines and is expected to start training in couple of weeks.
For Sporting, they will have Striker Bas Dost and defender Jeremy Mathieu back in contention after missing out on reverse fixture. Both of them could have a large scale impact on game against Arsenal.
READ: Bas Dost: Sporting’s own Alexandre Lacazette
KEY PLAYERS TO LOOK OUT FOR
ARSENAL: Matteo Guendouzi
Matteo Guendouzi is expected to return back to starting line-up after missing out against Liverpool serving for red card he obtained against Blackpool in the EFL Cup.
Guendouzi has been impressive since his arrival at Arsenal, he is young, confident.. Arsenal have found a ‘gem’ of a player in Mateo Guendouzi.
His physical presence in the midfield would make life harder for Sporting’s midfielders to take couple of extra touches to settle down on the ball.
He is ARSENALCORE’S player to look out for Arsenal vs Sporting.
SPORTING CP: Bruno Fernandes
If there is any promising player other than Bas Dost, one automatically infers to Bruno Fernandes.
The 24-year-old has proven himself a key player for the Portuguese side since joining in 2017. He is a natural centre-midfielder known for his crossing, key passes and taking set-pieces.
He is someone who can contribute to the offensive as well as a defensive aspects of the game. Though talking the offensive aspects, he can play a key part in the Sporting’s offensive transition and can become the central player who can lay off distribution from centre of the park.
Bruno also posses tactical intelligence as well as good sense of positioning which is probably the reason why he was compared to Real Madrid Toni Kroos early in his carrier.
If Sporting wants to progress with even a point from Emirates it will not only need an overall contribution from the team but also individual brilliance from players like Bruno Fernandes and Bas Dost.
Probable Eleven
Arsenal
Cech
Jenkinson
Sokratis
Pleguezuelo
Lichtsteiner
Mo Elneny
Guendouzi
Mkhitaryan
Ramsey
Aubameyang
Welbeck
Sporting CP
Ribeiro
Gaspar
Coates
Mathieu
Acuna
Gudelj
Petrovic
Nani
Fernandes
Cabral
Dost
