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Thursday 29 August 2013

Arsenal Find Themselves In Tough Champions League Group

Wenger faces tough first few months of the season. (©GettyImages)

North London club Arsenal has found themselves in a tough Champions League group after getting past Fenerbahce in the play-offs.
The Gunners find themselves in a group featuring last season's finalists Borussia Dortmund, Serie A runners-up Napoli, and French giants Marseille.
Having endured a relatively successful week with wins over Fulham and Fenerbahce, the Arsenal fans will now be worried about the Champions League draw due to the lack of transfer activity at the Emirates.
Arsene Wenger came under huge pressure from the fans after a home defeat to Aston Villa.
Arsenal surely have to go into the transfer market when they look at their opponents in the group. Dortmund stands out as they reached the final last season and have made some great signings this summer.
Henrik Mkhitaryan, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Sokratis Papasthatopoulos have move to the Signal Iduna Park.
Marseille may be the weakest opponents in the group, but they are very experienced in the Champions League and may be a potential 'banana-skin' for the other three powerhouses in the group.
Mathieu Valbuena, Andre Ayew, Dmitri Payet and Andre-Pierre Gignac are experienced players, and can create lots of problems for their opponents.
Napoli has a new manager in the form of Rafael Benitez who won the Champions League with Liverpool in 2005. Benitez knows the competition very well, and has added some quality to his team so far this summer.
Gonzalo Higuain, Jose Callejon, Raul Albiol, Dries Mertens and Pepe Reina all moved to Stadio San Paolo. These players were added to the likes of Marek Hamsik, Lorenzo Insigne, Gokhan Inler and Christian Maggio in a very talented and strong Napoli team.
It will be a tough task for Wenger and his men to get out of this group. On paper, Dortmund and Napoli have the strongest teams, and so they should have enough firepower and depth to get out of this tough group.

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