Ex-Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Jamie O’Hara thinks Arsenal “will crumble” in the Europa League this season as they will “focus” on the Premier League.
The Gunners came close to qualifying for the Champions League last season as they sat fourth in the table with a few games to spare.
But they lost two of their last three games to slip down to fourth. One of these defeats came in convincing fashion against Tottenham Hotspur, who ended up fourth.
VAR is not the problem; football has disappeared too far up its own arse
Arsenal have made a brilliant start to the 2022/23 campaign as they won their first five Premier League games.
They are on the back of a defeat though as they were beaten 3-1 by Manchester United at Old Trafford last weekend.
The Londoners switch their focus to the Europa League on Thursday night. They face FC Zurich in their first group game.
Arsenal also come up against PSV and FK Bodo/Glimt in Group A. Mikel Arteta is expecting FC Zurich to be “very ready” to battle his side:
“The biggest danger is that they haven’t got the results that they probably expected after the season they had last year,” Arteta told reporters.
“You can see how willing they are to win football matches and this is a different competition with a different context. I expect a team that will be very ready tomorrow.”
Speaking on it now being 29 years since Arsenal won a European trophy, he added: “That’s a long time. We would like to be the first one to break that negative record but you have to start somewhere and it starts tomorrow by playing well and earning the right to win the match.
“We don’t have that many players available unfortunately because of the injuries we picked in the last few weeks.
“This is a competition that we want to take very seriously against an opponent that is going to make life difficult for us. We want to start the competition in the right way and maintain our momentum.”
Arsenal are one of the favourites to win the Europa League this term, with them and Man Utd expected to go far in the competition.
O’Hara thinks the Gunners will fall short in the Europa League, though. He has predicted that they will be knocked out in the quarter-finals.
The former Spurs player believes Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta will “focus” on getting the club back into the Champions League:
“Do they win it? No, I don’t think they do win it. They’re going to crumble,” O’Hara told talkSPORT.
“I think Arsenal’s main…
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