Arsenal will welcome Italian giants Napoli at the Emirates Stadium for the first leg of their UEFA Europa League encounter tonight, in what is accustomed to be the tie of the quarters.
Both of these clubs were regarded favorites to lift the Europa League silverware, which makes it more of an interesting encounter with the winner potentially lifting the trophy at the end of the season.
Talking about ‘How they walk into this match’, Arsenal comes into the fixture on back of a hard to take defeat against Everton at Goodison Park, which came as a blow to their 3rd position in the Premiership and that makes it all important for them to perform well on Thursday Night.
Napoli, however, are assured Champions League football next season but will of course be interested in European glory after losing Serie A title to Juventus. Carlos Ancelloti side comes into the fixture on back of 1-1 draw against Genoa, although they rested some players in view of playing Arsenal in the mid-week.
Arsenal boss Unai Emery is most successful manager in Europa League history and will be hoping to repeat the honors this season eyeing his first title with Arsenal and fourth Europa League medal. However, The Gunners face a tough battle in Napoli and they will have to work hard especially taking that home advantage at the Emirates Stadium tonight.
TEAM NEWS
The trio of Rob Holding, Hector Bellerin and Danny Welbeck will continue to serve sidelines although all of them were present at London Colney yesterday in process of their recovery.
Laurent Koscielny and Granit Xhaka will undergo late fitness test, however Sokratis Papastathopoulos will be back into Arsenal’s defence after serving suspension for his red card against Rennes.
For Napoli, the side from Naples have received major injury boost as duo of Insigne and Faouzi Ghoulam have recovered from their injuries ahead of the match against Arsenal.
KEY CLASHES
READ: Kalidou Koulibaly vs Sokratis Papastathopoulos
READ: Dries Mertens vs Alexandre Lacazette
READ: Aaron Ramsey vs Piotr Zieliński
POTENTIAL XI
ARSENAL
Cech
Mustafi
Sokratis
Koscielny
Maitland-Niles
Kolasinac
Xhaka
Ramsey
Ozil
Aubameyang
Lacazette
NAPOLI
Meret
Hysaj
Maksimovic
Koulibaly
Ghoulam
Callejon
Allan
Fabian
Insigne
Mertens
Milik
