Unai Emery says Arsenal are 'one of six' sides who could win the Europa League

Unai Emery thinks Arsenal can win the Europa League

Unai Emery said Arsenal are "one of six" sides who can win the Europa League but reiterated how difficult their task will be.

Arsenal reached the last 16 of the competition courtesy of a 3-1 aggregate win over BATE, but trailed from the first leg after a shock defeat in Belarus last week.

They blew away their visitors at the Emirates on Thursday to reach the last 16 in a competition Emery previously won three years in succession with former club Sevilla.

After their emphatic win he said: "We can win. Maybe if we can say there are six teams that can win it, one is Arsenal. But it's very difficult. A lot of teams want the same thing.

"We need to enjoy this competition a lot, and create a big atmosphere with our supporters. This feeling can give us more possibilities, with our quality as a team.

Sokratis scored Arsenal's third goal within four minutes of coming on

"We need to feel stronger in this competition, and create this atmosphere around us."

Arsenal's second-leg performance was a marked improvement from the disappointing showing in Borisov seven days ago, where BATE won a European knockout game for the first time in their history.

"The first result was not good for us, so we needed a big effort tonight," Emery added. "We needed to be careful because we needed to score the amount we did tonight, because if they scored one they would have a possibility to go through.

"We had a good focus for 90 minutes to make sure we didn't concede a lot of chances to them."