Sporting CP vs Arsenal - Emery eager for Arsenal to continue entertaining at Sporting Lisbon

Posted Thursday, October 25, 2018 by PA

Unai Emery wants to see his Arsenal side continue to be entertainers as they look to move a step closer to the Europa League knockout stages with victory at Sporting Lisbon.

The Gunners head into the Group E game in the Portuguese capital on a 10-match winning streak and have scored at least three goals in five of their last seven outings.

Only Manchester City have scored more Premier League goals than Emery’s men, who wrapped up a 3-1 win over Leicester on Monday with a superb team goal finished by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

It is the second game in a row in which a free-flowing attack led to a memorable goal after Aaron Ramsey completed a similar move in the recent thrashing of Fulham – and Emery is keen to see more of the same.

“We want the balance – the balance to score a lot and also not to concede a lot of goals,” he said.

“But for me the individual goalscoring statistics for the players is very important, as it is for the supporters to be excited with many things on the pitch. Scoring goals is important for this spectacle.”

While the likes of Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Mesut Ozil have been rightly receiving the plaudits for their attacking efforts, summer signing Lucas Torreira has also played his part.

The Uruguay midfielder joined from Sampdoria and had to wait five games to be handed his full debut by Emery.

But the tough-tackling 22-year-old has quickly established himself as a fans’ favourite, with fellow midfielder Granit Xhaka full of praise for the recent addition.

“You can see that he’s important for us because he’s strong in defence and in duels,” he said.

Both Arsenal and Sporting have won their opening two matches in Group E so any winner at the Estadio Jose Alvalade will be in prime position to progress when the pair meet again next month.

Sporting boss Jose Peseiro insists he has united his players after a summer which saw the club plunged into crisis.

A host of key players terminated their contracts with the 18-time Portuguese champions after their training ground was attacked by disgruntled supporters.

The likes of Rui Patricio and William Carvalho were among those to depart, with Peseiro returning for a second spell in charge to replace Sinisa Mihajlovic – who left after nine days in the job.

“We had to bring the players back together and we’ve been able to do it: the players are united,” Peseiro said.

“We want our fans to be untied with us. Even though we have lost two games we know we have to give the signal. At the most dramatic times of our history, we have to give a positive response to the fans.

“Those difficulties are something we were aware of. I wanted to win, I wanted to come back to this club, I was not able to be victorious in the past, now I want to be victorious.”