Europa League

Arsenal vs Red Star Belgrade Preview | Europa League

By Soumik Datta

Posted on October 31, 2017

Arsenal will lock their horns against Red Star Belgrade in the Group Stage match of the Europa League on Thursday this week. Arsenal are now in good form in recent days. The victory against Everton with a 5-2 margin one week ago had increased their confidence to a certain level and it had been reflected in the team’s spirited comeback performance against Swansea City this weekend.

Arsenal have now won their last 13 games at the Emirates in all competitions,their longest ever winning run at the stadium. They are currently situated at 5th position in the League Table of the Premier League. Arsenal had won all the 3 matches in the Group Stage of Europa League and would like to qualify as the group topper.

Arsenal made a good comeback in the match against Swansea City this weekend. They had fallen behind with a goal from Clucas in the first half for Swansea City. Sead Kolasinac started the way of coming back in the match as he had equalised the scoreline at 51st minute of the match in the second half. Mesut Ozil’s goal at 58th minute gave Arsenal the lead in the match from the pass given by Kolasinac. Arsenal were able to keep the lead for the remaining period of the match. The match had ended with Arsenal winning the match with a 2-1 margin.

On the other hand, Red Star Belgrade are in great form in the Serbian SuperLiga. They are in the first position of the League Table in the Serbian SuperLiga with 40 points from 15 encounters so far. They are also in fine form in Europa League Group Stage. They are now in 2nd position in the League Table with 1 win , 1 draw and 1 defeat in their 3 matches. They will try to snatch a point from Emirates to stay in a good position to qualify for the next round of the competition.

When and Where :

Arsenal vs Red Star Belgrade will be held on Friday,3rd November and game kick-off time is 01:35 IST at the Emirates Stadium.

Team News :

Arsenal were behind till the end of the first half in the match against Swansea and then Wenger’s pep talk charged the whole team up for a spirited comeback.

“At half-time, I could be worried because we were 1-0 down and I knew that Swansea had conceded only one away goal the whole season. For us it was important to play quicker, sharper, with more penetration, changing sides quicker and putting them more under pressure, which we did in the second half. In the first half, we looked dominating but a bit laboured, too slow in our game.”, Wenger told in the post match conference.

“For us it was important to play quicker, sharper, with more penetration”, he added.

The new signing of this season from Schalke this summer Sead Kolasinac is becoming one of the most influential Arsenal players on the field.

“Never give up, the only thing that matters in football is winning!” the player tweeted after the match against Swansea in this weekend.

Aaron Ramsey had got his 50th goal in the match against Swansea. He had scored 32 Premier League goals,11 Champions League goals and 7 Domestic Cup goals in his Arsenal career so far.

“I’m delighted to reach 50 goals for this club,” he said afterwards. “Hopefully there’s a few more to come yet!”

“I’m just delighted to have played a part in winning this game today. They’re a quality team and it was difficult in the first half. But we stuck at it, we knew we had the quality and it’s important to win at home. I’m just delighted that we won the game today and we kept our 100 per cent winning record at home.”, he told after reaching the milestone in Arsenal colours.

“We have quality players throughout this team and down the left-hand side today, we were more dangerous. We’re delighted to have these sorts of players in the team who can create opportunities and I’m pleased to be a part of that.”

“We’ve started well at home this season and we got a good win away from home last weekend. We want to build on that, become stronger away from home and hopefully continue this run that we’re on as well.”, he added.

On the other hand Red Star Belgrade had won all 3 matches in Serbian SuperLiga after losing against Arsenal with a brilliant goal of Olivier Giroud at the dying moment of the match of Europa League. In the last match they had emerged victorious against FK Zemun with a single goal from Richmond Boakye. In the match against Arsenal they will try to strengthen their defense and then will go for counter attack to get a goal from somewhere.

Key Clash :

The key clash of this match is going to be between Olivier Giroud of Arsenal and Aleksandar Pesic of Red Star Belgrade. Giroud will be keen to score a goal and mark an impact in the game to secure the first team choice ahead of Lacazette in most of the matches. On the other side, Pesic had already scored 7 goals in his 13 appearances for Red Star Belgrade. He will also try to get a goal against Arsenal to help his team to win this match.

ARSENAL VS RED STAR BELGRADE HEAD TO HEAD RECORDS :

Arsenal have played Red Star just twice before the match in Serbia 2 weeks ago in the group stage match of Europa League in which Arsenal emerged victorious with a 1-0 margin. Otherwise these two sides met each other almost 40 years ago in the UEFA Cup. Red Star won 1-0 in Belgrade and were held to a 1-1 draw at Highbury.