Arsenal set for hidden Champions League boost ahead of facing star Ten Hag axed
Arsenal's Champions League qualification will help them in the Premier League this season, according to Peter Crouch.
That’s because they’ll have to consistently maintain higher levels from one competition to the next, unlike last year Europa League teams posed a different kind of threat. Crouch, who played for both Liverpool and Tottenham in Europe, said: “Being in the Champions League can work in Arsenal ’s favour because there’s a real buzz around it.
“My experience of playing in it, it does elevate your game, it keeps your concentrations levels up, it keeps you switched on. If you go and do something in any walk of life that is incredibly easy to you, like going away in the Europa League and playing a lesser team, it’s very different to going away and playing a proper team. It keeps your mind switched on and I do think that could potentially help them in the league.”
If Arsenal miss out on the Premier League title this season, they will have gone 20 years without winning it. And while it’s not as long as Liverpool’s 30-year wait, Crouch believes that like the Reds they could well win the Champions League first.
Crouch added: “Liverpool were quite a way off the Premier League but they won the Champions League a couple of times in that process and it was the same with Chelsea.
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“It’s a knockout competition and the drama of the Champions League is such that every year it seems to throw up all these amazing games of football. All the English clubs are in the mix.
Peter Crouch feels Arsenal's Premier League form will improve for being in the Champions League (Getty Images)“ Newcastle ’s group is a difficult one but with Arsenal and Manchester United it’s a great opportunity to go and do something really special.”
Meanwhile, the Gunners must tame PSV Eindhoven wonderkid Noa Lang on Wednesday if they are to give their Champions League return the lift-off they hope to.
The youngster’s form this season is almost as hot as his head was during his Ajax days with Erik ten Hag, with the now-Manchester United boss eventually getting sick of his antics and binning him. Lang mouthed off at his boss during a cup match and it proved to be the final straw for Ten Hag, who exploded on the touchline and delivered an expletive-laden rant at the player that was picked up by pitch-side TV cameras and microphones.
Hot-headed PSV star Noa Lang will take on Arsenal (Hollandse Hoogte/REX/Shutterstock)Ten Hag ordered technical director Marc Overmars, the former Gunners star, to flog him the next day and he did, moving him on to Club Brugge. Lang’s time in Belgium was no less combustible and he got into trouble for singing an anti-Semitic song aimed at rivals Anderlecht. Politicians demanded sanctions from Club Brugge and in the summer he moved to PSV.
But the Dutch international was soon back in the spotlight, with Feyenoord fans targeting him for comments he’d made about their club, for whom he’d played as a youngster.
He was Public Enemy No.1 when they faced PSV in the Johan Cruyff Trophy but Lang, inspired by the storm, scored the winner to hand his new club the trophy.
PSV manager Peter Bosz said of the controversial forward: “I wish people would focus on his football, not on his actions or words off the pitch. Noa Lang is one of the best players I have ever worked with, he is a great player and he will do great things for us.”
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