Mikel Arteta knows how crucial the next two weeks will be for Arsenal.
Arsenal face Leeds on Sunday before taking on Benfica in the Europa League, Manchester City next weekend, Benfica again and then finally Leicester City.
The Gunners have dropped down in the table and will want to climb up. But at this point, their best bet of qualifying for Champions League is through the Europa League. Two defeats on the bounce against Wolves and Aston Villa might have killed off their hopes of a top-six finish.
Arteta said, “It’s going to be crucial. We don’t have any margin now in the league and, in the Europa League, they are knockout games, so the moment you don’t do what you have to do you are out.
“First of all, we have to improve our position in the league dramatically, and in order to do that we have to win a lot of football matches. How many will depend on what the opponents do because at the moment it’s not in our hands.
“We need to get into Europe, into a really, really close situation where we can compete for that ‘trophy’, because that’s going to be key as well to see where we can compete in which competition next season.”
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