Arsenal v Crystal Palace, Wednesday 23 April 8pm BST

Qwiss

Bringing my son to this one so hopefully wont be too weak a side and we can get a good win.

Tam

A club like Bournemouth getting into Europe would be massive for them, regardless of the competition. It would be huge for their fans.

The snobbery and belittling of competitions like this is yet another one of several awful aspects of the modern game that prioritises business before the supporters experiences.

Claudius

Tam this is why I disagree.
Premier League is the toughest league in Europe now. All the teams have tons of money. The teams have little room to make mistakes, unlike ten years ago. See how United and Spurs are 14th and 16th despite their wealth.

For Bournemouth this what they need to consider

premier league is extremely tough
each place is worth £3m next year.
maximum prize money from winning Confernce and winning all your group stage game is _£10m

They could end up playing a ton of games and losing much more than they stand to gain. The Europa league makes sense. This shit competition doesn’t

Burnwinter

Claudius Yeah it's really only top six that matters here barring less likely scenarios and the pointless Conference League. Palace and Bournemouth are all but out of the reckoning.

Tam

Claudius That makes sense if you want to look at football purely from an empty, hollow, financial viewpoint.

I suspect most, if not all, 11,000 Bournemouth fans who squeeze into their stadium every other week would love the romance and adventure of a European campaign. Give me that any day of the week over some penny pincher telling me it's better for the club to miss out on the type of competition and experience that dozens of clubs and hundreds of players below them in the football pyramid would die for.

MistaT

Claudius -- prize money is part of the financial appeal, but so too is gate revenue which I would imagine could hit £5+m

Claudius

Tam I’m a fan. I would love some trips across continent with my team. I just think about how badly Europe impacted us and we have a strong team. It could devastate small clubs like Brentford / Bournemouth who don’t have proper academies. They need bigger teams before going into Europe seriously

samthegooner

With a 6 day break before our next match, I would expect Arteta to roll out a very strong lineup today. Ideally, I think we start with the group he is targeting to start the first PSG tie so we gain more familiarity with a new setup without Partey. I think we will see something similar to the weekend but with MLS and Timber back in. Ideally we can take Saka off around 60 minutes again and give a few others an earlier night to save legs but 6 days rest is a long time so I'm not too worried about saving anyone. Just fingers crossed for no injuries.

Sicario2

Don Pacifico

Merino being out is a concern.

Panda

No Merino/White even on bench is worrying.

USArsenal

Im not that concerned with Benny or Merino not in the squad today. We have a weeks' rest after this. We need people to be fit and ready. If they even have a knock, leave 'em out and roll on to next week.

Apart from Sterling playing in place of Saka, this is the strongest team we could put out given that Merino and White are not in the squad.

Qwiss

Any word on why Merino is out?

tazmania

Merino better not be injured

USArsenal

Arteta just said that they were not fit, he did not elaborate.

USArsenal

And of course Eddie is starting against us.

Sicario2

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

Given we just had Easter you'd have thought Jesus would be back for this.

TambourineMan

Very annoying that Nwaneri is not starting. What's the point of going with Sterling?

HomeSteak

TambourineMan makes 0 sense. It would be very Arsenal like if Merino got injured

Sicario2

HomeSteak are you still alive? You didn’t tell us about your experience at the Bernabeu!?