Emery Fires Gunners Rallying Call

Arsenal manager Unai Emery says the Gunners will have to be at their very best if they are to progress past Rennes in the Europa League.

Arsenal welcome their Ligue 1 opponents to the Emirates Stadium tonight trailing 3-1 from last Thursday’s first leg.

They will be forced to mount a second-leg recovery for the second round in a row after they overturned a deficit against BATE Borisov in the round of 32, and Emery is calling on his side to show their best.

Related: Emery Happy With Arsenal’s Progress

“We are very demanding of ourselves,” Emery said. “For us, it’s one positive issue because we want to play big matches, tough matches against the best teams – and in the Europa League we are finding some results like the last round against BATE Borisov with difficulty.

“This round is the same with a bad result in the first match and for us it’s a tough match tomorrow. But our demands to get our best performance is in each training and each match, very high.

“I want to play matches that are difficult, with difficult results or with difficult players. “Tomorrow is one match. We need to be together and create a big atmosphere in the Emirates with our supporters to help us to do the best performance possible in 90 minutes.

“We need to play with high emotion with our supporters but taking decisions on the pitch cleverly with our mind.

“These are both important issues that we need to control over 90 minutes and maybe more. We want to control but we want to build on the game because this result is giving us one long match tomorrow.”