Arsenal do not want to be playing in the Europa Conference League next season.
That is the view of Gunners legend Ray Parlour who is of the opinion that a year without European football may turn out to be beneficial for his former club long-term.
Following a 3-1 win over Crystal Palace on Wednesday evening, Arsenal are still in with a shout of sealing a top-seven finish in the Premier League this season.
For that to happen they must better Tottenham and Everton's results when they welcome Brighton and Hove Albion to the Emirates Stadium on the final day of the campaign.
Furthermore, there is the incentive to finish above their north London rivals for the first time since the 2015/16 season.
But in doing so, they could also book their ticket for next season's Europa Conference League and that would leave Parlour rather disappointed to say the least.
"You don’t want to be seventh, you don’t want to be playing in that," Parlour told talkSPORT Breakfast. "I don’t want Arsenal to be playing in that.
"It might do them a favour not to be in Europe for one season. They can take stock in pre-season and say ‘look, we need to really have a go next year’.
"It just doesn’t sound right – conference! You don’t want to be in that tournament."
With that said, it is safe to say that the Arsenal legend disagrees with Mikel Arteta about playing in the Europa Conference League next season.
Speaking ahead of the Brighton clash, the Gunners boss stressed the club must be in Europe.
"Well, it’s a new competition so I don’t know really well what will happen," Arteta said in his press conference. "First of all, let’s try to finish as high as possible and after we will determine, if we are involved, what is the best way to deal with it.
"We have experienced in the last few years how tough being in the Europa League is with the amount of games that we play and the short turnaround that you have in the Premier League.
"I think there is a lot of history there with teams that have been involved in the Europa League, the negative consequences that has in the Premier League positions.
"But we try to give it the best possible go, we came a little bit short. But this club has to be in Europe."
