Arsenal team for match tonight against Slavia Prague

 

• Salavia Prague v Arsenal. Why clubs now study the referee in advance of a game
• Salavia Prague recent results and Arsenal’s drive to be fouled less often

By Tony Attwood

So after the chit chat there is nothing much more to contemplate other than the possible team for the game this evening….

And Arsenal News oblige with

Raya

White Saliba  Gabriel  Lewis-Skelly

Norgaard Rice

Saka Eze Trossard

Merino

The Standard offers some positional variations

Raya

White, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly

Nwaneri, Norgaard, Rice

Saka, Merino, Trossard

and by and large, I think that covers most of it.

They also tell us that academy striker Andre Harriman-Annous has travelled with the team. The 17-year-old could make his Champions League debut off the bench against Slavia.

It should also be noted that while there is enormous enthusiasm for each new young player that Arsenal introduces, because this currently shows Arsenal in a good light, what we will eventually get is a backlash, either along the traditional lines of “You can’t win anything with kids” or some contemporary variation..

The seven injuries we have are a blow, but so far, everyone coming up through the squad as a replacement has been doing well.

Here is the current list

• Gabrield de Jesus – due back in the new year
• Martin Odegaard – due back late November
• Kai Havertz – due back early December
• Gabriel Martinelli – return date not yet known
• Chukwunonso Madueke – due back start of next month
• Viktor Gyokeres – no return information
• Martin Zubimendi – no return information

However, Mikel Arteta has been very positive about Christian Norgaard of late and so it looks like he is certainly in the team.  Along of course with Rice who has already been praised consistently by the manager – and indeed everyone receiving his free kicks.

Highbury House has done an interesting analysis which is worth reading which suggests they are going into the match with a 4-2-3-1 formation, with the defence and midfield playing close together and full emphasis placed on the counter attack.   There is also mention of their set-piece routines, and hopefully Arsenal will have done their homework in appreciating how the club approaches such games.

But indeed, as we have noted, the club went two up against Bodo/Glimt and then let that slide..  So what we can do here is have a look at the official Uefa statistics for the two clubs

We know that Arsenal in the Champions League have scored eight and conceded none.  Today’s opponents have scored two and conceded five.  In terms of possession, Arsenal have 57% in Champions League games, while the opposition tonight have 42%.

But the opposition are tacklers – they have won 14 tackles in their Champions League games so far to Arsenal’s 12.

However, their keeper has made 15 saves in the Champions League games so far, while Arsenal have had six – although of course that very much does depend on how far forward the opposition attackers get.

But where Arsenal can run into trouble is with yellow cards.  Arsenal have had seven in the Champions League this season to five for the opposition.

Unfortunately, not all the stats for our opponents tonight are included in the Uefa website, while all of Arsenal’s data is complete, and I wonder why that is.   Is it that Uefa didn’t send anyone to get the data?  Or did they lose it?  Or is Uefa data not as accurate as we might hope it could be.

Doing our own research, we managed to find the opposition tonight, having played 16 games since 2019/20 onwards in the Champions League at various stages.   Of these, they have won six, three have been drawn, and seven have been lost.     That comes from Uefa’s website

But Wikipedia has all the data going back to 1974/5 for the Cup Winners’ Cup, and they have found 53 games in the Champions League with 16 wins, 14 draws and 23 defeats.  And that is excluding the games in the Cup Winners Cup, Europa League and the Conference.

I am sure all the data can be resolved but there is a bit of a need to be cautius.