Unai Emery says Granit Xhaka and Laurent Koscielny are doubts for Arsenal’s Europa League quarter-final first leg against Napoli.
Both players missed Arsenal’s 1-0 Premier League defeat to Everton on Sunday and face a race against time to be fit for Thursday’s home clash with the Serie A side.
The Gunners boss, speaking after the match at Goodison Park, revealed he knew that the French defender would not be able to play at least 24 hours before the Premier League game and is hoping for positive news on both players. “I want to be positive for Thursday but it depends how he’s progressing, Xhaka is the same,” said Emery “They are doubts for Thursday.
We have players and we know we can produce the performance with all the players.
When you lose one match, maybe you can look at the players who didn’t play, but I think it’s rarely the consequence.
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We’ve won matches with other players, other systems, and we need to be efficient in each moment. “We need to be consistent like we are a lot of the time, but sometimes we can lose.” The Spaniard also explained how Aaron Ramsey, who came off the bench at half-time on Merseyside, wanted to start but it was too much of a risk. “He was better and it was his idea to play, but we spoke with the doctor and we had a doubt over him playing 90 minutes,” added Emery. “We decided for him not to start, then after we needed him to come on.”
