It's as simple as that, where should Unai's Red Army focus almost exclusively on for the rest of this season, I know it's only Matchday 25, but with us knocked out of the FA Cup by United and pretty much out of the top 5 right about now, and barely ahead of Wolves who are currently in 7th place, what do we do??? Damned of we do, but also damned if we don't, one way or the other, if one thing has to be the main prize for this season, I would probably go all-in on winning Europa League, we made it to the semifinals last year (under Arsene Wenger) but fell to Atletico Madrid, I think we have a much better chance this season at winning that competition this year with the squad we have now as well as a manager who has won the EL before, so based on that I think we should risk not finishing in the top 5 and go all-out and win our way into Champions League by winning the Europa League. You on the other hand, may offer a different option, or, a different opinion. I await to read it., COYF'n'G!!!
I don't think the team really has the ability to focus on one or the other. There's barely any "starters", what would a "not focused on" lineup even look like?
Sure we are in 6th right now but we are 9 pts clear of Wolves (not barely above them) and only 3 pts out of 4th. We have games coming up next month against Spurs and ManU. The rest are against teams that are below us in the table. Chelsea (currently 3 pts ahead of us) have matches against ManC, ManU, Spurs & Liverpool. ManU (currently 1 pt ahead of us) have matches against ManC, Chelsea, Liverpool and us. Not sure we need to focus on one yet. I'd go for both right now and possibly adjust later. By the end of March there should be a clearer picture.
My heart says "win a trophy" especially one we've never won in our history (Uefa/Europa). But my brain says qualifying for Champions League is the crystal clear priority, because of the (sigh) money we badly need, not to mention the prestige and what that does for our ability to attract quality recruits. However, since winning Europa would also qualify us for CL, and that might just turn out to be an "easier" accomplishment (certainly fewer matches to win) we must go for both priorities simultaneously. Anything less would be foolish. And Emery has shown no evidence of doing so. He's put out near-full-strength teams for early rounds of lesser English cups!
Obviously you're probably not counting the European Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (in which would evolve into what is now the Europa League) we won in the 1969-70 season, especially that dramatic second leg of the finals against against Anderlecht where Eddie Kelly, John Radford and Jon Sammels, along with stud goalkeeping from Bob Wilson, OBE, lead us to a 3-nil victory in that leg and a 4-3 aggregate win to capture our first ever European Trophy (and our first hardware of any competition since 1953 at the time) and would catapult us into our first ever double the following year (League title/FA Cup)
Yup. Definitely wasn't counting this '70 Fairs Cup (which along with our first double year in '71, I missed by just a few years) nor the '93 Cup Winners Cup. The bigger Euro trophies have eluded us: Europa nee UEFA Cup & Champions League nee European Cup.
Top 4 gets you into the Champions League. Winning Europa gets you a trophy and gets you into the Champions League. It should be an easy choice. There is no 4th place trophy.
Frankly I don't think Arsenal can afford to choose. The approach from here out has to be to try and win the cup while maximizing points in the league. Might mean marking some games as disposable if it means resting players for the bigger picture, but regardless of outcome the team has to show fight and progress in the chase for European play and prestige. They need to build form and show the ability to put away lesser teams, such that if they do miss out on CL again they've at least shown the potential to improve and compete next season. If they're earnest in wanting to become a CL regular again someday.