Arsenal finished top of their Europa League group with a 1-0 win over Qarabag at the Emirates last night.
Qualification into the final 32 was already in the bag before last night’s game but finishing group winners means Unai Emery’s side have ‘easier’ opposition to contend with next round.
The Gunners will avoid the likes of Napoli, Inter Milan, Benfica and Valencia with all four teams dropping into the competitions after finishing third in their respective Champions League group. Emery’s side will also dodge games against Eintracht Frankfurt, Sevilla and Red Bull Salzburg with all three being seeded like Arsenal.
So, who can Arsenal draw in the next round of the competition?
Well here are the 15 teams they could be meet:
Zurich
Celtic
Slavia Prague
Fenerbahce
Olympiacos
Rapid Vienna
Lazio
Malmo
Krasnodar
Rennes
BATE
Viktoria Plzen
Club Brugge
Shakhtar Donetsk
Galatasaray
Arsenal fans will not be too concerned with who they draw with the form the team is in, but there are some teams that are much stronger than others and could pose a potential threat.
The best draw:
Looking at the 15 sides and considering their form in the Europa League thus far, Arsenal’s best outcome is a match up with either Fenerbahce or BATE. Both sides ended up with nine points from six games. In particular, Fenerbahce just scraped through a pretty weak group which consisted of Dinamo Zagreb (group winners), Spartak Trnava and Anderlecht. Their record was W2 D2 L2 and they scored seven and conceded the same amount.
BATE did well to qualify but they don’t look a side which will cause problems for Arsenal. The same can be said for a few other sides but BATE have the worst record of the lot considering they didn’t have a challenging group.
The one to avoid:
Probably because they dropped into the Europa League from the Champions League, Shakhtar Donetsk would be the draw to avoid for Arsenal. The Ukrainian side had a tough group to get out of which consisted of Manchester City, Lyon and Hoffenheim, and are a side who have experience in European competition.
The draw for the Europa League Round of 32 will take place on Monday 17th December in Nyon, Switzerland, at approximately midday following the Champions League Last 16 draw and can be viewed on BT Sport 2 and Eurosport 1.
