Arsenal’s team tonight and a plea for help as to which clubs are in Europe

 

By Tony Attwood

From the Arsenal History Society – just published, the first part in our series celebrating 100 consecutive season in the top diviison….

• 100 seasons in the top division. 1: The Election

And from Untold Arsenal

• Arsenal v the Yellow Submarine tonight: how have the opposition been doing.
• Arsenal v the chaos club. Hello Villareal

Arsenal’s injury list before this game is rather worrying.

However in a news briefing a week ago Arteta said of  Calafiori, Timber and Gabriel, that all three had restarted their training programme and that all three will be available for the start of the season so maybe things will be better by then.

However it is still the case that also injured by not expected back for some time are Jesus and Trossard.

Sporting News give us a possible lineup for tonight of 

Raya 

White, Saliba, Kiwior, Lewis-Skelly

Zubimendi, Rice, Odegaard 

Martinelli, Saka, Havertz

There is however, an alternative view for the forward line expressed by Football Insider, which gives a starting lineup of Saka, Gyokeres and Madueke.

Presumably, there will be the usual full-on collection of substitutions at half-time and/or on the hour mark.  It is certainly being mentioned that the new reserve goalkeeper Kepa will get to take part in some of this game, perhaps after half-time.

Both clubs start their season on the weekend after next – with Villareal playing Oviedo on Friday 15th August.   Arsenal are playing Athletic Club on Saturday, 9th and then Manchester United away on Sunday, 17th August.

And of course it is to that match against ManU to which most attention is directed, especially after their particularly poor season last time around.

We will come back to them before the game of course, but it is interesting to note that they have won most of their pre-season games except the first, which was a goalless home draw with Leeds United.   After that, they have beaten West Ham United, AFC Bournemouth and then drawn with Everton.   And what makes that rather interesting is that it seems a rather inward-looking set of fixtures – presumably reflecting the fact that they are not playing in Europe next season – so it is only worth having domestic friendlies, I guess.

Although obviously, all clubs and their fans want to play in Europe, there is a distinct advantage of not playing in Europe in that it reduces the number of matches and the amount of travelling involved..

Also, while gathering up all the bits and pieces of news as we prepare for the new season we can also now have a look at the clubs that Arsenal can come up against in the Champions League.

Here the format will be as per last season, with eight games selected from other qualifying clubs for the opening league section, with the clubs then separated into groups – the top group going through to the two-leg knockout stage, the middle group playing an additional two-leg knockout round, and the bottom group being dismissed for talking behind the teacher’s back (or somthing like that).

In the first round of eight matches Arsenal are joined by Tottenham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and Newcastle from England, and I think the rules are they can’t play any of those.

As far as I can tell in the Europa League there is just Aston Villa representing England, with Crystal Palace seemingly now relegated to the Conference League along with Nottingham Forest.  Although I must admit all the arguing about Crystal Palace in the Europa League or not (as seems to be the case) may mean I have got this wrong, in which case please correct me because I would like to know. (And apologise if I have made an error).