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Times & dates confirmed: Arsenal’s tie with Rennes switched to avoid Chelsea clash

By on February 22, 2019

Arsenal confirmed on Arsenal.com that we will now play the first leg of our Europa League last-16 tie away at Rennes to avoid a time-clash with Chelsea.

We were drawn to face Rennes in the last-16 of the Europa League earlier today and Arsenal were first out the hat meaning we should have played the first leg at the Emirates Stadium.

However, Chelsea were also drawn at home first for their clash with Dynamo Kyiv. UEFA’s ‘city-clash’ rule means two teams from the same city can’t kick-off at the same time and Arsenal were controversially forced to play at 5.55pm against BATE Borisov last night.

Many fans thought this would happen again for the Rennes game but UEFA have infuriated travelling Arsenal fans by opting to switch the tie so we’ll now play away first on March 7th with the return leg at the Emirates the following week.

From a strictly playing perspective, I’d rather we played the away leg first but obviously this has caused a nightmare for hundreds of Arsenal fans as many had already booked travel arrangements for the away leg on March 14th. They will now have to try and either try and get refunds or change dates/times.

It’s a strange situation but UEFA choose to re-arrange the Arsenal ties rather than Chelsea because they won the FA Cup last season – which is utterly bizarre.

Here is confirmation of the new dates/times for our Europa League clash with Rennes, as per Arsenal.com:

Rennes v Arsenal
Thursday, March 7
Kick-off: 5.55pm (UK time)
To be played at Roazhon Park, France

Arsenal v Rennes
Thursday, March 14
Kick-off: 8pm (UK time)
To be played at Emirates Stadium

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