Arsenal and Eintracht Frankfurt meet on UEFA Europa League Matchday 5 at 21:00 CET on Thursday 28 November. This page will update with team news, quotes and expert analysis as kick-off approaches.


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Pre-match thoughts

Unai Emery, Arsenal manager
We are doing a very good job in this competition but we need to make sure of our first position in the table. Our second objective is to win and take confidence as well as connect with our supporters. My job is to prepare the match tomorrow, to look only at the match tomorrow Our confidence depends a lot on how we can feel in our stadium with our supporters. Teams are coming here playing fearless. We need to be strong and together. We need to show our supporters our capacity and skills.

Adi Hütter, Frankfurt coach
Although we’ve lost three on the spin, we can put the situation into perspective. We’re still confident. We have to make sure we deliver a good performance tomorrow. If we do that, then we’ll get something from the game. We obviously still remember our last visit to London well. The match against Chelsea almost brought us to a final against Arsenal, but I still have lots of positive memories from that – and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Possible line-ups

Arsenal: Martínez; Sokratis, Mustafi, Luiz; Maitland-Niles, Willock, Torreira, Kolasinac; Martinelli, Pépé, Nelson
Out: Ceballos (hamstring), Saka (knee)
Doubtful: Holding (knee)

Frankfurt: Ronnow; Abraham, Hasebe, Hinteregger; Da Costa, Fernandes, Rode, Kostić; Sow; Paciência, Silva
Out: Trapp (shoulder)
Doubtful: Ronnow (illness)

Who needs what?

Arsenal will be through if they draw or win, or if Standard Liège lose
Frankfurt cannot qualify or be eliminated on Matchday 5

Reporters’ views
Andy Brassell, Arsenal
We are expecting a raft of changes from Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Southampton as Arsenal seek to clinch qualification for the knockout rounds. With injuries to Ceballos, Saka and Holding, Unai Emery is not able to make all the alterations he would like but the mobility of Gabriel Martinelli could pose some problems to Eintracht’s defence.

James Thorogood, Frankfurt
Frankfurt were flying high after a 5-1 win over Bayern München in the Bundesliga on 2 November, but have since suffered three straight losses including the 2-1 defeat to Standard Liege that has left their Europa League hopes in the balance. The trip to Arsenal is a must-win, but if they can tap into some of their European magic from last season, this team are capable of getting a result in London.

Previous meetings

• These clubs had never faced each other in UEFA competition until that 3-0 Matchday 1 win for Arsenal in Germany, late goals from Bukayo Saka – his first for the Gunners – and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – his 17th in the UEFA Europa League – adding to Joe Willock’s first-half strike and inflicting Eintracht’s heaviest European home defeat.


• Arsenal have played 39 UEFA matches against German clubs (W18 D6 L15). They have won 12 of the 19 at home but lost six, with five of those defeats coming in the last eight such fixtures, including a 1-5 loss to Bayern München in the 2016/17 UEFA Champions League round of 32 that ranks as their heaviest at home in UEFA competition.

• Eintracht have won just two of their ten matches against English opposition (D4 L4) and have yet to gain a positive result in England, losing the first three of their four matches in the country and drawing the most recent, 1-1 with Chelsea in last season’s UEFA Europa League semi-final second leg, before succumbing 3-4 on penalties to the west London side.

Form guide

Arsenal
• UEFA Champions League ever-presents for 19 straight seasons from 1998/99 to 2016/17, Arsenal reached the UEFA Europa League semi-finals at the first attempt in 2017/18, losing to eventual winners Atlético, before going one step further and making it to last season’s final, where they were defeated 4-1 by London rivals Chelsea.

• Fifth place in the 2018/19 Premier League secured a third successive UEFA Europa League group stage berth for the Gunners, who had won five European games in a row – one against Rennes, two apiece against Napoli and Valencia – until the Chelsea defeat in Baku.

• The 1999/2000 UEFA Cup runners-up picked up seven points at home in each of their previous two UEFA Europa League group stage campaigns and are now on a seven-match winning streak in the competition on home turf, five of those victories featuring clean sheets. Their overall UEFA Europa League record in the Arsenal Stadium is W12 D3 L1 and they have won 22 of their 33 matches overall in the competition (D5 L6).

Eintracht
• Frankfurt’s 14-match UEFA Europa League adventure in 2018/19 brought memorable knockout phase wins over three teams that had crossed over in mid-season from the UEFA Champions League – Shakhtar Donetsk, Internazionale and Benfica – before they were beaten on penalties in the semi-finals by eventual winners Chelsea. That European run was accompanied by a seventh-placed finish in the Bundesliga.

• The 1980 UEFA Cup winners embarked on this UEFA Europa League campaign in the second qualifying round. They comfortably saw off Estonia’s Flora and Liechtenstein’s Vaduz before coming from behind to eliminate Strasbourg (0-1 a, 3-0 h) in the play-offs and reach the group stage for the third time. Their first appearance, in 2013/14, also resulted in further progress before they were eliminated by Porto on away goals in the round of 32 (2-2 a, 3-3 h).

• Eintracht’s overall record in the UEFA Europa League, home and away and including qualifying, is an eye-catching W23 D6 L5. Their away record in the competition is W10 D3 L4, the recent defeat in Liege having halted a run of five consecutive group stage victories on the road.

Links and trivia

• Arsenal’s squad contains German internationals Bernd Leno, Shkodran Mustafi and Mesut Özil. Eintracht have two Mannschaft members on their books in goalkeeper Kevin Trapp and defender Erik Durm.

• Arsenal’s Granit Xhaka and Eintracht duo Gelson Fernandes and Djibril Sow are all Swiss internationals.

• Six Arsenal players – Leno (Bayer Leverkusen), Xhaka (Mönchengladbach), Özil (Schalke, Werder Bremen), Aubameyang (Borussia Dortmund), Sokratis Papastathopoulos (Bremen, Dortmund) and Sead Kolašinac (Schalke) – have played in the German Bundesliga.

• Papastathopoulos, Aubameyang and Eintracht’s Sebastian Rode are former Dortmund team-mates.

• Aubameyang scored the winning goal from the penalty spot as Dortmund beat Frankfurt 2-1 in the 2016/17 German Cup final. Papastathopoulos was also in the Dortmund side, with David Abraham, Timothy Chandler and Mijat Gaćinović in the Frankfurt starting XI.

• Alexandre Lacazette scored twice past Trapp as France drew 2-2 with Germany in a November 2017 friendly international in Cologne.

The coaches

• After two years with Paris Saint-Germain that yielded seven domestic trophies, Unai Emery was appointed Arsenal manager in May 2018, replacing the long-serving Arsène Wenger. The Spaniard oversaw Sevilla’s historic hat-trick of successes in the UEFA Europa League from 2013/14 to 2015/16, having assumed control following a four-year tenure at Valencia and a brief stint with Spartak Moskva. A finalist again with the Gunners in 2018/19, he has been in charge of more UEFA Europa League games than any other coach, this being his 79th.

• Austrian coach Adi Hütter was named by Eintracht Frankfurt as successor to Bayern-bound Niko Kovač in May 2018, having just led Young Boys to their first Swiss league title in 32 years. He proved a shrewd acquisition, guiding Frankfurt to the semi-finals of the UEFA Europa League and back into Europe via the Bundesliga. A midfielder who spent seven years with Salzburg, he returned to steer the club to a domestic double in 2014/15 after managerial stops at Altach and Grödig. He then crossed the border to spend the next three seasons in Berne.