Top-four spot a big struggle warns Emery

UNAI EMERY admits Arsenal cannot finish in the top three – and has warned they are outsiders to finish in the Champions League places.

The Gunners’ terrible away form has seen them slip down to sixth.

And after a January window where Arsenal brought only another lightweight midfielder in on loan in the shape of Barcelona’s Denis Suarez, Emery has started to condition fans to prepare for a third campaign without Champions League football.

“There are teams now better than us,” said Emery, above. “They have an advantage to us. Are we the outsiders now? Yes, we are sixth.

“It’s practical but it’s like that. We need to continue thinking in our capacity to be in the top four but knowing it’s difficult.

“Liverpool, Manchester City, Tottenham also – they are doing a big difference between us. Chelsea and Manchester United, they are closer than us. The top three – it’s so far.”

Arsenal travel to Huddersfield today, with the struggling Terriers having very different problems.

Goalkeeper Jonas Lossl is asking anyone he can for advice on how to help drag Huddersfield out of their slump – including his wife.

Lossl was out of the team at the start of the season as new signing Ben Hamer initially got the nod in goal.

And he was then part of the Denmark squad who went on strike in September over a contract dispute with the country’s football association, leaving a team of semiprofessionals to play a friendly against Slovakia.

Back in Yorkshire, the keeper saw head coach David Wagner leave last month, while the club have also had to cope with chairman Dean Hoyle’s absence during an illness that has kept him in hospital for three months.

Hoyle is hoping to attend today’s home game against Arsenal – his first since being taken ill with gallstones in October and then developing pancreatitis following surgery.

His reappearance could give Huddersfield just the boost they need as they seek to end a miserable run that has brought them just one point from their past 12 league matches.

Lossl said: “You’ll have to ask my wife if I’m difficult to live with right now, but I’m not happy after the games.

“It’s hard for her. The family feels it, of course they do. There is pressure on everyone, including the staff here at the club.

“Everyone handles the pressure in their own way. I owe it to everyone to not let the pressure come to me.”