Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger admits that he has turned down several approaches from Paris Saint-Germain down the years out of loyalty to the London club.
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He is determined to win Group A – also including FC Basel and Ludogorets – this season, which would mean that Arsenal would be seeded for the last-16 and would not have to play a group victor.
The news is a massive boost to Arsenal’s hopes of claiming a positive result at the Parc de Princes to kick off their 2016/17 Champions League campaign.
But Arsenal has never won Europe’s biggest prize, losing to Barcelona in the 2006 final, and the Gunners are looking to get beyond the last 16 for the first time since 2010.
“They are a bit like us with a number of players who came back a bit late (from summer holidays), so they have had to an extent the same problems as us”, Wenger said. It’s a city I love, it’s my country, a country I love. We have scored goals since the start of the season, but we bought one more striker because we thought we needed one more.
Arsenal, who have a good record on recent visits to France, have recovered from taking a single point from their opening two Premier League games, winning the next two to reach sixth place in the table.
“He was the leader, the captain, a charismatic carrier of the ambition of the club and it’s always hard to measure when you lose a player of that stature, how big the damage is”.
Despite the relative experience of Mustafi and Holding’s mature displays since arriving from Bolton Wanderers in July, Koscielny will be missed.
A sentiment echoed by Arsene Wenger in his post-game comments, Gooners did get the chance to see both Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez in Arsenal shirts for the first time however. “Tomorrow is the first opportunity to show that, after those two winless games, we can play well”.
The 31-year-old suffered a facial injury in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Southampton having drawn the Gunners level with a superb overhead kick on his birthday. “For Tuesday, we might just have Gibbs coming back, who was not in the squad today”.
“The squad is between (age) 24 and 30, basically”, Wenger said. Moreover he thinks Wenger must act prudently to give his best players enough rest by rotating the squad.
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“I’m very busy in my work, but I’m absolutely convinced we are going to improve”.
