Vela is also back in the squad and sufficiently rested following his international travels. Eduardo, van Persie and Diaby are all still unavailable, the squad is the same as the one that faced Manchester City

It took a late winner at Old Trafford, but we’ve now turned a six point deficit into a six point lead over fifth place, and we now need to concentrate on the cup competitions for the next two weeks as we face Villarreal over two legs of the Champions League quarter final, followed by Chelsea in the FA Cup semi final at Wembley, with a trip to Wigan wedged in the middle. Our last trip to the Estadio El Madrigal was a memorable one, a Lehmann save from a Riquelme penalty less than a minute from time earning us a goalless draw which took us to our first ever Champions League final. We’ll probably need a better result than 0-0 in the away leg to take to Le Grove, but hopefully beating ‘The Yellow Submarine’ will result in a similarly successful run in competition, but without the same heartbreak at the end. It’s important we score in this first leg, regardless of our good defensive form I’m still never confident of our ability to keep a clean sheet, and a Villarreal goal next week could be a killer blow if we don’t manage to get anything on Tuesday.

Villarreal have managed a mere four clean sheets in their last thirty games in all competitions, as opposed to our nine in the last thirteen. They’ve only won six of their last seventeen league games and are currently fourth in La Liga, nine points behind Sevilla in third and twenty four points behind Barcelona at the top of the table. They crashed to a three nil defeat against eleventh place Almeria on Saturday, and like us were unable to rotate much ahead of this fixture due to knocks picked up during the international break. We’re now unbeaten in seventeen league games. At home in the league this season they’ve won nine, drawn three and lost two, so they’re pretty solid at home. In the Champions League group stage they won two of the three home games and drew against Manchester United, they finished one point behind the current champions in Group E. United didn’t manage to score against them in either tie.

Team News

Arshavin is obviously ineligible, his place in the team will be taken by Nasri who has recovered from his virus after sitting out the match on Saturday. Vela is also back in the squad and sufficiently rested following his international travels. Eduardo, van Persie and Diaby are all still unavailable, the squad is the same as the one that faced Manchester City, but with Nasri and Vela in place of Arshavin and Ramsey. The injured trio could be in contention for the trip to Wigan at the weekend and Rosicky should soon be back in full training, if he isn’t already (Wenger said three weeks ago that he would be back in full training in two weeks). We’ll probably go with the Roma formation, but with Adebayor, Walcott and Song in place of van Persie, Eboue and Diaby.

Subs: Fabianski, Silvestre, Djourou, Gibbs, Eboue, Vela, Bendtner.

Villarreal

They had a similarly tough time for injuries during the international break, with Marcos Senna, Bruno Soriano and Diego Godin returning with knocks that kept them out of their squad on Saturday, and they could all be struggling to make a return by Tuesday. Santi Cazorla had his leg broken in Villarreal’s last league game against Almeria. Pires was sent off shortly into the second half of that game so he’ll be good and rested.