Champions League Night – Knockout stage begins

When the season began, I was positive and happy that we were competing for 4 trophies – FA Cup, Carabao Cup, Premier League and Champions League. I was hoping we would pick at least one of the them and put an end to our trophy drought. But things have not panned out as we expected.

Things started going wrong from January. We were ousted by Manchester United in FA Cup third round on penalty. City is most likely going to win this now.

Next was our Carabao Cup run coming to an end in semi finals, where Newcastle beat us twice – both home and away – with 2 to nil.

West Ham (loss) and Forest (draw) have killed our Premier League title chase. Yes, it’s still mathematically possible but we are 13 points behind Liverpool with a game in hand. Even if we win ours, that would be 10 points difference with only 10 games to go. I doubt Liverpool are going to drop that many points and I doubt we are going to take advantage of that situation.

That leaves us with the Champions League.

We are visiting the Dutch side PSV Eindhoven in the last-16 today for the first leg. Champions League are usually very unpredictable and you can’t take lightly any of the games. We have seen City only somehow managing to get into the knockout games of group stage, and we have seen some big teams losing out to qualify.

And the fact that we have a non-existent attack further complicates it for Mikel and team. We are going into the game without our StarBoy Bukayo Saka, our left winger Martinelli and without a CF (even a make shift Havertz). Defence looks okay, Ben White is back from his injury and MLS is back from his suspension. Saliba and Gabriel will hold the fort for us.

It’s not tough to guess who would be starting today, Trossard, Nwaneri and Sterling and it’s not a good sight for the Arsenal fans. We should try scoring first and hold on to the lead because we often complicate it for ourselves and I don’t want to see us leave everything for the 2nd leg.

The players must have been demoralised with the recent run of games and when asked about it, this is what Mikel had to say :

on how to instill belief into the players:
Well, try to explain how we’re going to do it and why we do things, and they try to deliver that in the best possible way. In the last two results it’s been very different, in terms of performance as well, not getting the right result that we want, but we’ve certainly been better, especially in the last game with the opposition. And the fact we still have gears, even with the players that we have, some of them have gears to take us to a different level. When it comes to that stage, it’s about lifting the level and the standards, every individual has to be at their best. When we do that, with the team that we have and the connection we have between us, we are a really strong team.

source : Arsenal.com

If we manage to get past the PSV in round of 16, we would face one of the Real Madrid or Atletico in quarters.

Right, so with whatever is available for today, I would personally love a back 4 of White, Saliba, Gabriel and MLS. Cala has been making some mistakes lately so MLS sounds a better option to me. Timber has been doing well but if White is fit, he has got better runs in overlaps and I would try him. Keep Timber on bench in case we need him later in the game.

A midfield of Thomas Partey, Declan Rice and Merino will start but I would never be happy with both Rice and Partey starting in a game. Pick Jorginho ahead of Declan and stick Merino on the left.

Front 3 has been a conundrum but the only option we have is, Trossard in the middle, Sterling and Nwaneri on either side of the pitch. Lets not put Merino up top and lets not expect him to score 2 goals every game.

Right, that’s all for today. The game’s a bit late for me, but I will be up and will see you during the game.

Cheers!