BE BRAVE TO SILENCE SAN PAOLO
BY PAUL BROWN
UNAI EMERY fears Arsenal are in for one of the longest nights of their lives against Napoli – and has warned them to be brave.
The Gunners boss expects an explosive atmosphere in front of a 60,000 crowd at the notorious Stadio San Paolo. But he believes his side are ready for it as they look to protect a 2-0 lead from the first leg and reach the semi-finals.
Emery said: “We must play with courage and also intelligence. We know 90 minutes here can be long.
“But we want to play without thinking about the first leg. We know it’s going to be a different match. We are waiting for their best performance in their stadium with the atmosphere.
“But we are ready. We want to play thinking to win, thinking to score, to stop them, tactically to be together, and when we have the space, to attack.
“They have a lot of players with big quality to give us a lot of problems but we also have the players to fight against them with our quality.”
Napoli are unbeaten at home in Europe this season, scoring 10 goals, and beat Liverpool here back in October.
Defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos knows all about the reputation of Napoli’s fearsome fanbase from a four-year spell playing in Italy for Genoa and AC Milan.
But the Greece star said: “We will have to be focused for 95 minutes to do our work and our style of game. The atmosphere will be very good.
“I already played a lot of times here but I don’t think that changes anything for us. We have a very good team and we trust ourselves.
“Can we match them for courage? We play very good football. Every game we fight. For us this is one more final. We will be ready.”