Arsenal v Partizan

So here we are in the last group game of the Champions League. What looked like a sure-fire position to go into the knock out stages a couple of months ago is now less clear thanks to defeats at Braga and Shakhtar. We are now in a position where even if we do progress, we are likely to come second in the group and therefore face a harder team at the stage.

The odds of us winning are good tonight although nothing is ever certain. Partizan have lost all games in the competition so far, and we have never lost to a European side at home. As well as securing the three points, we also need Braga to do us a favour at Shakhtar to come top and unfortunately I can’t really see that happening.

I was expecting to see Djourou play tonight but apparently he has a thigh injury, so Koscielny will start having recovered from his concussion at the weekend. Eboue is also back, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Van Persie play a big chunk of this game.

Wenger said, “For us it’s quite simple, the Champions League is an important part of our targets for the season and we want to be in the last 16. We have put ourselves a little bit in a tricky position with our last two games but it is still all in our hands and that’s what we want to do – qualify.

We lost at Donetsk and Braga. The fact that Donetsk won all their games – apart from the big defeat they had at Emirates – means they are in a strong position to win the group. But I feel at Braga we were a bit unlucky and when we played at Donetsk they had a very good game. We always knew we had the security of playing at home in our last game but we hoped Shakhtar could drop some points.”

He went on to discuss our possible opponents in the next round saying, “If you want to win the Champions League, you have to play against these big teams. First of all, it is not a guarantee that we play Barcelona or Bayern in the next round – there are some other teams we can play. So what happens, happens. What is important is not to focus on the teams we might play, we first have to be very pragmatic and qualify first. We will see then who we get.”

I agree with the sentiment, but let’s just worry about qualifying first and then see where we go from there.

 COME ON ARSENAL!!

Lots of love,

Highbury Honey xxx