With Arsenal and Manchester United the remaining flag bearers of the the English Premier League left in the Europa League following the elimination of Leicester City and in the last round, Tottenham, both teams are seeking refuge in the competition to salvage what has been a season of ups and downs for them.
Although United are second on the Premier League log, they are in diire need to win a trophy and Arsenal are looking for a saving grace to remain in Europe next season.
Arsenal welcomed Czech Republic giants, Slavia Prague to the Emirates stadium on Thursday night and will be kicking themselves for their current predicaments, as their season is now on the knife edge, following a profligate performance on the night.
Mikel Arteta expected an instant response from his team, following an abject outing against Liverpool on the same ground last weekend and although he got that, it was a fruitless improvement.
Arsenal squandered loads of chances to kill the tie in the first leg and make the second leg in Prague a formality. Alexander Lacazette, Pierre Emerick Aubameyang and Bukayo Saka, all culprits.
Lacazette was presented with arguably the best chance of the game after he stole the ball from the centre circle, ran through on goal with only the goalkeeper to beat, but could only find the angle of the crossbar.
Aubameyang who came in for him also missed a sitter after being set up by Emile Smith Rowe, seconds after coming off the bench. He although made up for this with his fine effort to release Nicholas Pepe for Arsenal's eventual goal in the 88th minute, Arsenal will rue their missed chances.
For the umpteenth time this season, Arsenal were the architects of their own problems, especially when the opposition has really not being competitive. Cedric Soares and Gabriel played the team into trouble with just few seconds of the game to go to concede a corner. Unlucky Pepe turned villain as he was only able to deflect the resulting corner into the path of Tomas Holes who powered a close range header past Bernd Leno I goal to level the tie going into the second leg.
Arsenal now have to work their skins off if they still nurse any ambition to make progress and give their already appalling season a meaning.
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Manchester United on the other hand continued their decent campaign under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with a hard fought 0-2 victory away to Granada.
In what seemed like the biggest game in the Spanish club's history, a quarterfinal game in an European competition, against an European giant, they gave United things to fear about but couldn't just keep in their hold.
United got their first goal of the game after Viktor Lindelof found Marcus Rashford with about 70 yards diagonal pass for the Englishman to score his 8th European goal this season.
The goal makes the England international the third Premier League player this season to have scored at least 20 goals in all competitions after Harry Kane and Bruno Fernandes. He also becomes the only player for United, after Wayne Rooney in 2008/09 and 2009/10 to score at least 20 goals in all competitions in two consecutive seasons.
Their advantage was doubled in stoppage time when Yan Brice was correctly penalized for a foul on Bruno Fernandes, who made no mistake from the spot, to give his team a comfortable two-goal advantage going into the second leg at Old Trafford.
It wasn't a perfect night night for United either as three of their players picked up yellow cards earning them suspension for the second leg next week. Scott McTominay and Luke Shaw who both picked up yellow cards along with their captain, Harry Maguire will be unavailable for the second leg in England.
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