Can Arsenal take an important step towards a fairytale ending for Arsene Wenger by beating Atletico Madrid in their Europa League semi-final 1st leg?

Though there season has been another near disaster – there’s a reason Wenger is leaving – the Gunners came up with a fitting response to the news the Boss was departing, flattening West Ham with a 4-1 victory. Granted, 3 of those goals came in the final 10 minutes of the game. But the confidence Alexandre Lacazette hopefully gained from his late brace could be important come Thursday night. The Frenchman sits at a Super Mega PGM of 28-33, with Danny Welbeck at 17-21 and Aaron Ramsey, who also scored on Sunday, at 13-17.



While there have been some very Arsenal moments in the Europa League – losses to FC Koln and Ostersund, the slightly panicky draw against CSKA Moscow a fortnight ago – there’s been plenty of good as well. The North London club shone best in the last 16, when they roundly beat AC Milan 5-1 across 2 legs – no mean feat given Gattuso’s side were up until that point unbeaten in 13 consecutive fixtures.

Yet nowadays Atletico Madrid are quite a notable step up from the flagging former European masters. Admittedly, now is probably a better time to face Atletico then at any other point in the season. Having lost just one La Liga game in their first 26 league fixtures, they’ve since felt defeat in 3 of their last 8, drawing 2 and winning the other 3. It’s effectively seen them abandon their push for the La Liga, meaning, like Arsenal, the Europa League is last chance saloon silverware-wise.

And that may well make them more dangerous. Though they were pretty flaccid in the Champions League group stages, they upped their game following their European demotion. They hammered Copenhagen 5-1 on aggregate, before giving Lokomotiv Moscow an 8-1 kicking; they weren’t quite as gung-ho against Sporting CP, but that did come away with a 2-1 win.

Antoine Griezmann has unsurprisingly been Atletico’s main man going forwards, and is at a Super Mega PGM of 28-33, followed by someone who will be very familiar to Arsenal, Diego Costa at 21-25.

The want to give Wenger an appropriate send-off maybe, just maybe, gives the hosts the edge, at a tight Arsenal/Atletico Madrid Goal Supremacy spread of 0-0.2 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.3-2.5.