Thursday evening, at 20:00, Arsenal receives Napoli’s visit to the first quarter of the UEFA Europa League quarterfinals. “Tuners” are in good shape, but have lost the final stage of the Everton Championship (0-1), showing that they are rather thinking about the Thursday match. Napoli comes after a disappointing draw with Genoa, score 1-1 on home ground. There are no big batch problems in the two camps.
Arsenal has an excellent balance on the Emirates in recent years, and Napoli has also played against the English on this arena. The two bands met in the 2013/2014 Champions League, when the Londoners were forced 2-0 at home but lost 0-2 on San Paolo. The duel took place in the competition groups. And this time we will see a balanced “double” where Unai Emery’s students will try to take full advantage of their own land.
The result encourages white-reds who have scored five consecutive Emirates victories since February: 2-0 with Southampton, 5-1 with Bournemouth, 2-0 with Manchester United, 3-0 with Rennes and 2-0 with Newcastle. Napoli is accustomed to receiving a goal with great ease on foreign ground, as happened with Empoli (1-2), Salzburg (1-3), Sassuolo (1-1) or AC Milan (0-2). Clearly stronger on the ground, Napoli starts with a second chance in this duel, although the Italians have won 5 of the previous 7 European tours.
In addition, Napoli has scored at least two goals in 4 of the last 5 games, and bookmakers offer 2.40 for a match with at least two guests. On the other hand, Napoli has not won any of the seven games in the European Cups on English field so far, missing the Champions League qualifying after a Liverpool match (0-1). It is worth noting that Arsenal has won 6 of the previous 7 matches played against Serie A teams on their own in the European Cups.
Moreover, the “tuners” have only two failures in 16 games in which they received the visit of Italian clubs. The winner of this double hand will be Valencia or Villarreal in the semifinals. Carlo Ancelotti is well aware of Arsenal’s team, also using the experience gained in the Premier League, and the visitor’s manager will try to limit as much as possible the score on Thursday night. We were expecting a cautious first time from Napoli. Winning the UEFA Cup in 1989, Napoli wants to fight for the Europa League trophy, but the qualifying squad will be decided on San Paolo next week.
PREDICTION: Both teams to score / YES @ 1.56
