So the best team in the whole of Europe play in London tonight, how very exciting. The other team will be the German champions Bayern Munich. *Badoom tish*
It was a tough old two legs last season against the same opposition, losing on away goals felt somewhat more respectable when they later demolished Barcelona 7-0 over two legs. A year on and we face a Bayern Munich side under new management and while there has been adjustments in style and personnel, they are just as strong if not more so this season.
Bayern Munich have effectively won their domestic league a long time ago and are coasting through without any real challenge for their competitors so you’d think they will want to raise their game in the Champions League. Not that raising their game is an issue, given that they are the holders of the Champions league.
So there is no doubt about it, this is going to be a big ask of Arsenal to win over two legs but we know that on our day we can beat anyone. We beat Bayern Munich in Germany last season and our team this year is stronger.
I fully expect us to be very cautious this evening. We will want to have plenty of players behind the ball when we don’t have it and look to hit Bayern when we win it back. I think Oxlade-Chamberlain is pretty much guaranteed to start for this reason.
He was our best player attacking player against Liverpool and we will need to see some more of that if we are to make an impact on the break. It is a big ask of him at this stage of his career, I guess we will need him to ‘do a Jack Wilshere’ in that famous game against Barcelona a few years ago.
Speaking of Jack Wilshere, I suspect that if Jack is fit then he will come into the team alongside Mathieu Flamini but I have to say, I’d quite like to see Tomas Rosicky given a more disciplined role alongside the Frenchman. The Czech gives the ball away less and it usually takes Wilshere a few games to sharpen up. It is not as if he was at his best before he was rested/injured for our FA cup game. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that Mikel Arteta is suspended for this game but I am sure you already knew that anyway.
Many people will want to see Lukas Podolski continue in the side but I think Santi’s ability to keep the ball better might be more useful in a game where the opposition are likely to have a lot of the ball. Bacary Sagna, Kieran Gibbs and Oliver Giroud are all likely to return to the team so I am going for a line up like this…
Mean Lean’s Predicted Line Up:
As I said above, I expect Arsène to go for Wilshere over Rosicky but given that Tomas was completely rested on the weekend, he could quite easily replace Santi on the left to try and keep the game as tight as possible. Arsène did just that against Dortmund at the Emirates.
Bayern are the favourites for the match and the tie so it removes some pressure off our shoulders. History has often shown that we thrive when we are not the fancied side. Wins in Madrid, AC Milan and Inter Milan prove that point.
I expect us to not show a great deal of attacking intent in the first 45 minutes, maybe the odd break away but should the scores remain level we will push on in the second half. Two legged games are much longer games so patience will definitely be in order unless of course like last season Bayern hit us early.
How good would an early Arsenal goal be? That would be very interesting indeed. How about a Giroud header from a Chamberlain cross? I’m excited now but I must say, I’d take a stale 0-0.
Not losing gives us momentum for our league campaign and with the away goals rule, we would be in a strong position. If anyone doesn’t want a hand anymore then someone please offer me that draw.
Post match Q&A stuff after the game followed by my match thoughts.
’till then.
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