“The Europa League is much harder than the Champions League"

Ruben Amorim claimed that the Europa League is harder to deal with than the Champions League due to teams getting less time to recover for their league games at the weekend, as he spoke ahead of Sunday's crunch between Manchester United and Arsenal. 

The Gunners played their Champions League last 16 tie on Tuesday - demolishing PSV 7-1 away from home - while Amorim's men were held to a 1-1 draw at Real Sociedad on Thursday in the Europa League, giving them two more days to rest than the Red Devils.

With that in mind, the Portuguese head coach recognised that his side were at a disadvantage and said: “Europa League is so much harder, in my opinion, than the Champions League. Not for the games, but the recovery to play Premier League on the weekend. So we have to deal with that”.

Amorim also admitted that the closeness between European and domestic fixtures forces him into making changes to his starting lineup, as he added: "People talk about our rotation, especially how we are changing all the time in Europe. It's because it is really hard in the Europa League."