Arsenal make their return to the Europa League on Thursday night as they host Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt at the Emirates. It will be the Gunners' second game of the group stage, having won the opener against FC Zurich and having their originally scheduled second game against PSV Eindhoven postponed.
The visitors - often referred to as just Glimt - sit top of the group after they have played two games, picking up a win against FC Zurich and a draw against PSV Eindhoven. Victory for the Gunners would lift them to first before making the round trip to Norway for the return fixture next Thursday.
On the opposition ahead, manager Mikel Arteta discussed preparation and said: "We've done our homework. We need to stay humble and improve and raise competition within members of the squad," hinting at further rotation for the match.
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As mentioned by the manager, it would be foolish of Arsenal to underestimate their European opponents, who have consistently overcome the odds. Going into the 2019 season, many had tipped Glimt for relegation after selling some key players. However, they bounced back to finish second.
They weren't fancied the following year either, but they overcame that to win the Eliteserien for the first time in their history before winning it again the next season. Since then, the side from Norway have regularly competed in Europe, with one of their finest performances being a 6-1 thrashing of Roma last year.
All of this was achieved by manager Kjetil Knutsen, a tactician that has consistently improved his sides and was recently linked with the Brighton managerial position. Ahead of his clash with Arsenal, he appears to have explained how to beat the side who have lost just once this season.
"I started watching Arsenal against Zurich to analyse Zurich, but my concentration and my gaze went towards Arsenal because I was thinking, 'What the hell are they actually doing?!' There are a lot of rotations, so you have to pick them apart and see where are the players who are fairly stable in their roles and where are the players who rotate a lot.
"It's just extremely high-level, high-intensity football with extremely high-level individual qualities. But when you get to see it over time, it's not very complicated.
"They have a number of rotations with the left-back and central midfielder, who has a lot of freedom, but it's a lot less on their right side. But the way we defend, it doesn't matter too much where players run because we are very zone-orientated in the way we defend.
"If we played a man-to-man system, we would have a huge challenge to face, but we are at the other end of the scale [in terms of approach], so that's probably the least of my worries. They attack with a lot of people, and they're patient and then suddenly they have that burst in the final third.
"But they also leave space behind, which we must exploit. We need to be aggressive in the low block and high intensity in the high press, and we will have to control the ball. Tottenham only defended, Zurich only defended – if you do that, you won't stand a chance against them."
It remains to be seen if his style will work as planned against Arteta's men, especially given the quality the Spaniard will have to call upon.
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