'Arsenal Buoyed By Europa League Comeback'

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'Arsenal Buoyed By Europa League Comeback'

Arsenal will enter Sunday's clash with Leicester City in a much more confident mood following their UEFA Europa League progression, says Simon Collings of the London Evening Standard.

2021-02-28T09:06:00.000Z

by Sam Jones

Published

28 Feb, 2021

'Arsenal Buoyed By Europa League Comeback'

Arsenal will enter Sunday's clash with Leicester City in a much more confident mood following their UEFA Europa League progression, says Simon Collings of the London Evening Standard.

Sam Jones

2021-02-28T09:06:00.000Z

'Arsenal Buoyed By Europa League Comeback'

Arsenal will enter Sunday's clash with Leicester City in a much more confident mood following their UEFA Europa League progression, says Simon Collings of the London Evening Standard.

Sam Jones

2021-02-28T09:06:00.000Z

'Arsenal Buoyed By Europa League Comeback'

Arsenal will enter Sunday's clash with Leicester City in a much more confident mood following their UEFA Europa League progression, says Simon Collings of the London Evening Standard.

Sam Jones

2021-02-28T09:06:00.000Z

'Arsenal Buoyed By Europa League Comeback'

Arsenal will enter Sunday's clash with Leicester City in a much more confident mood following their UEFA Europa League progression, says Simon Collings of the London Evening Standard.

Sam Jones

2021-02-28T09:06:00.000Z

- Mikel Arteta's side are the latest visitors to King Power Stadium on Sunday afternoon (12pm kick-off)- The Premier League fixture pits the third place Foxes against 11th place Arsenal- London Evening Standard journalist Simon Collings spoke to LCFC TV about the late win over Benfica and the Gunners' season as a whole- He praised the contributions of youngsters Emile Smith-Rowe and Buyako Saka, who have been bright lights in a difficult campaign

The Gunners travel to King Power Stadium for the 12pm kick-off after a morale-boosting 3-2 victory over Portuguese giants Benfica on Thursday evening.

Trailing 2-1 with 23 minutes to play, Arsenal scored twice, including an 87th-minute winner from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, to seal their spot in the last 16.

Due to a difficult spell of league form, the Gunners currently find themselves in 11th place in the Premier League table, 11 points adrift of the top four, and their European exploits have provided a welcome distraction for the supporters.

"For Arsenal, that Europa League game in Athens was season-defining, I think the campaign was on the line," Collings admitted to LCFC TV earlier this week.

"We know how bad they've been in the Premier League, obviously out of the Carabao Cup, the FA Cup and with three minutes to go, they were staring down the barrel.

"[Mikel] Arteta spoke a bit about it afterwards and how moments like that can kickstart a season, give you belief, give you hope. I think for the squad and for Arteta, they will try and view that as 'we can still doing something this season'. That can be a moment they look back on and think 'thats when things started to change'.

"It's really been a difficult season, the fans haven't had much to cling on to, but a moment like that where you score a last-minute winner and suddenly you have a bit of joy, it's big for them.

"I think a lot of fans were worried about the prospect of losing to Benfica and having 13 league games with nothing really to play for and not being able to go to the stadium. There's a little bit of optimism and the mood is certainly a lot better than it was, but there's still a long way to go."

Emile Smith-Rowe and Buyako Saka have been two of the bright lights for Arsenal this season, contributing a combined total of 11 goals and assists in the Premier League. The recent form of captain and top goalscorer Aubameyang has also been a major contributing factor in Arsenal's improvement over the last few weeks.

"Everyone knows about the difficult patch in December and when they came out of that, there was just so much more expression and flair about Arsenal's play," Collings explained. "Credit has got to go to [Emile] Smith-Rowe, credit has got to go to [Buyako] Saka.

"Last season when Arsenal went all the way in the FA Cup and mounted a charge in the league to try and get up the table, it was down to [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang and the fact remains that if you've got a player like him on form, scoring goals, the whole team just looks so much better and you feel the pressure lift off shoulders when the talisman is on song.

"He got a hat-trick against Leeds, admittedly in a difficult week against Manchester City, two again against Benfica in the second leg."

Collings believes it could be a bad time to play the Gunners, who will have their tails up after Thursday's events and are also determined to get back to winning ways in the league.

Raheem Sterling scored the only goal of the game as the Gunners lost to Manchester City last weekend and Leicester could find similar areas to exploit their defence.

He added: "Man City are a great team anyway but they got Arsenal at a nice time when they certainly had one eye on the Athens game. I think the wariness for Leicester will have to be if Arsenal are riding the crest of the wave.

"The one good thing for the Foxes could be that now Arsenal have got through and they know they've got another round (in the Europa League), they might try and rest a few players.

"You look at someone like Saka, he's played a lot of minutes, Aubameyang at 31, he's played three games in nine days, so that could be the benefit for Leicester. But they're going to be coming up against an Arsenal side who are buoyed and really are feeling that they've now got their season a bit more back on track.

"That tie against Benfica should really have been put to bed in the first leg and again in the second leg and Arteta made the point afterwards that Arsenal gave Benfica two of their goals. You look at that second goal in particular, it's just a long ball put forward, a bad header from [Dani] Ceballos, Benfica nick it and score.

"And in the first leg it was a sloppy penalty. Arsenal still have those mistakes in them, those individual errors, and if Leicester can exploit those then they might have some joy."

All times GMT.

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