The vice captain of Arsenal, Mikel Arteta, has said that he can’t think of his team not making it to the main draw of the UEFA Champions League.
Arsenal had ended up at no. 4 in the Premier League table last season, so, they need to win the play off tie against the Turkish club Fenerbahce to make it to the main draw.
The first leg of that clash will take place at Istanbul on Wednesday and then, 6 days later, the two teams will meet for the return leg at the Emirates Stadium.
Arteta will not be able to feature for the Gunners in the first leg as he is unfit. He discovered a thigh injury while playing in Arsenal’s first Premier League game of the season against Aston Villa on Saturday.
Talking to the reporters yesterday, Arteta said, “We had to toil extremely hard last season to finish at no. 4. It was a fantastic comeback by the team in the later parts of the season and we will have to ensure that we don’t waste that. No matter which team we are competing with, we will have to get through to the main draw.”
Even if Fenerbahce manages to emerge out as the winner of this tie, it’s not certain whether they will qualify for the main draw or not. They have appealed against their ban from European competitions and the verdict on that appeal has not come yet. It will come a day after the return leg.
However, the Fenerbahce boss Ersun Yanal has made it clear that his players are not thinking about the verdict and they are fully focussed on the game.
Yanal said, “We can’t think about the stuff which is not in our hands. All we can do is to give our 100% on the ground and then, hope for the best.”