Emery's Arsenal face gruelling week

Unai Emery admits Arsenal will struggle to cope with a draining schedule that sees them host Leicester at the start of three games in seven days.

Emery's side will be pushed to the limit by the television schedulers, who moved their Premier League clash with the Foxes to Monday evening at the Emirates Stadium.

The Gunners then travel to Portugal for a Europa League tie against Sporting Lisbon on Thursday before returning to domestic action at Crystal Palace on Sunday.

In contrast, Sporting were due to face Loures on Saturday night, giving them more time to recover before hosting Arsenal.

Emery has fielded a strong side in Arsenal's previous Europa League matches, but he will be forced to rotate more heavily this time.

"We are one team with a very high level and very high demand for us," he said.

"Every player, they need to feel they can play every match. With only three days difference between one match and another, you can't do that.

"You can't do that with play and rest, play and we can't do that without changing players. But if I decide to play with the same players Monday, Thursday, Sunday, the players can't do that.

"We want to play a lot of matches. We want to continue doing our way with different possibilities tactically and with the players - but with a lot of matches, we can't do that."
- 'Not an excuse' -
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"After, we are going to play Thursday, we are going to play Sunday also, two matches very quickly after Leicester. For me it's not an excuse because we are preparing for Monday."