Arsene Wenger says the main focus this season is winning the Premier League title, rather than Arsenal’s efforts in the Europa League.
The Gunners missed out on UEFA Champions League football for the first time under Wenger and will be forced to play on Thursday nights for the duration of this season in UEFA’s second-tier European competition, the Europa League.
Speaking ahead of Arsenal’s clash with Chelsea on Sunday in the traditional English season curtain raiser, Wenger confirmed that winning the Premier League would be the priority this season.
“For us it is a good opportunity to focus completely on the Premier League,” Wenger said. “I would say that the Premier League has, in my opinion, taken over from the Champions League interest-wise.”
Wenger added that seeing the difficulty of the group and length of travel to away fixtures will be important to see first before deciding whether first-team players would be rested in the Europa League this season.
“I will always play a team that has a good chance to win the next game,” Wenger added. “In the Europa League if we can afford sometimes to rest some players we will do it. But we have to adapt to the level of the competition and see first what kind of group we play in.”
