Trevor Steven: Arsenal must prioritise a top four finish in the Premier League over European exploits
The season starts here for Arsenal. The next seven days will be vital to their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League and they have three winnable games.
If they don't return to Europe's elite competition next year then this campaign will have to be seen as a disappointment.
They face BATE Borisov, Southampton and Bournemouth, all at home within the space of a week, and it is a great opportunity for them to regain some of that momentum of earlier in the season, when they went on a 22 game unbeaten run.
It was against Southampton in December that the undefeated run came to a halt, even though they should have won that match, and since then they have lost games here and there.
Arsenal lost to BATE last week in the Europa League but, having been previously eliminated from the FA Cup, they enjoyed a break over the weekend and I expect them to turn around that tie in the second leg at the Emirates Stadium on Thursday night.
While the prospect of a trophy for Unai Emery in his first season will be attractive, Arsenal's priority has to be finishing in the top four in the Premier League.
They are just one point off of fourth-placed Manchester United and, looking at the fixture list, they have the more favourable run of games.
The Gunners start March with two tough games against Tottenham and United but after that the following eight league games in the run-in to the end of the season are all very winnable.
United, meanwhile, will still have Manchester City and Chelsea to navigate, not to mention their current Champions League and FA Cup commitments.
Ultimately Emery will be judged on how well Arsenal do this season compared to under Arsene Wenger last year.
Despite the scepticism around him at the moment, things change quickly in football and we could be talking about Arsenal in a different light on the back of three wins next week.
The Ozil Dilemma
Emery has got more out of Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang this season but the team are lacking creativity of late, which makes the decision to leave Aaron Ramsey and Mesut Ozil out of the side questionable.
Ozil is a player that you either love or hate. He is either poor or instrumental in winning the game, but that inconsistency is a problem. It becomes a lot more apparent when he is having a bad game because of his lack of aggression and hard work.
He is one of the top six creative footballers in the Premier League but he is a fairweather player: he only plays well when the going is good but you cannot count on him to turn a game around.
If Ozil isn't going to play then Ramsey has to. He has been a great professional this year and has always played with commitment despite deciding to leave at the end of the season.
When he has started games – or more frequently come off of the bench – he has allowed the team to be more direct. For whatever reason they have decided to part ways and he will be a huge loss to Arsenal. Juventus have got a fantastic player on their hands.
The next week represents a chance for Emery to show his managerial skills. He needs to rebuild his side's confidence ahead of a run of fixtures that will determine whether Arsenal return to the Champions League.