With qualification already assured we’ll see a Carling Cup player or two in the team. There’s a mid-week break after the league game on Saturday, so there’s no major need for resting players

So we just about managed to get a consecutive win in the league for the first time since October, and we now all desperately hope it’s the start of a run of form with Middlesbrough away our next opponents on Saturday. However, amongst the madness and discussion surrounding the Eboue situation it may come as a surprise to learn that we have a game on Wednesday. Thanks to Bendtner’s late winner against Kyiv a fortnight ago, we have now qualified for the second round knockout stage of the Champions League, and we now just have the last game of the group stage to go. The qualification scenario is an interesting one. We just need to avoid defeat in Portugal to come top of the group and be seeded for the latter stages. Porto were the victim of one of our most comprehensive victories of the season, with a 4-0 win at home in September, and they’ll surely be out for revenge.

Obviously it would normally be seen as an advantage to finish top of the group and be seeded for the knock out stages, but looking at the other groups there is only really a vague advantage to be gained this year. If we finish top, the only teams we definitely avoid that are worth avoiding are Barcelona and Juventus. The rest of the top spots are up for grabs in the same way as our group. We could come top and still have Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Bayern Munich as our potential opponents. So essentially it doesn’t matter, we should just enjoy the game. The furthest we ever got in the competition was with the hardest run of knock out matches, the only real advantage to coming top is playing the home leg second, but in the past we’ve been knocked out by PSV Eindhoven with that advantage, and beaten Juventus and AC Milan without it. So who cares?

Team News

With qualification already assured we’ll see a Carling Cup player or two in the team. There’s a mid-week break after the league game on Saturday, so there’s no major need for resting players, van Persie and Adebayor are the only players left in England for that reason. Diaby and Gallas return to the squad after injuries, at the same time as we lose Clichy, Sagna and Fabregas. All three have a chance of being back for Saturday. Nasri is out till at least next weekend, when we take on Liverpool. Toure has had a recurrence of the problem that kept him out of the squad for a few weeks, but it’s not as serious as before and he also has a chance of being in the squad on Saturday.

The squad has plenty of kids in it, I’m not too sure how many will start though. Gibbs is likely to play at left back, Ramsey could come into the midfield although with Eboue, Denilson, Song and Diaby in the squad, he might not get a look in. That really would be the worst midfield Wenger’s ever fielded in a first team fixture. Vela and Bendtner will start upfront. Hoyte could play at right back, or Djourou could move across and Silvestre slots into the defence.