13, unlucky for some

Results

Date	Time	C	Opponent	F	A	R	S
16 Sep	7:45 PM	CL	Standard Liege (A)	3	2	Win

Wednesday night sees the start of yet another campaign in the Champions League proper and a good chance to put some recent blights behind us. For me the overriding football memory of the two Manchester games should be the fact that we dominated our opponents for large parts of the game and still came out empty handed.

We can view these upsets one of two ways. We can curse our luck, point to the injuries we had and keep our heads are in the sand or we can take it on board and use it as an opportunity to reassess some weaknesses before we enter the one competition where it is most crucial to cut out mistakes and punish your opponents while you are on top.

With news that Manuel Almunia is out with a chest infection I would expect Vito Mannone to get his first appearance in the Champions League. I for one am looking forward to seeing what he can do but would settle for finding out nothing due to a defensive shut-out. We've only had one so far this season. Our back 4 is likely to remain in-tact although personally I wouldn't mind seeing Kieran Gibbs get a run out to both increase his experience but also send a timely reminder to Gaël Clichy, should he still need one after the Man City game, that there is no room for dead weight when push comes to shove against the big boys.

Denilson joins Andrey Arshavin, Samir Nasri, Carlos Vela and Theo Walcott in the physio room so we are left with a midfield which picks itself. Frencesc Fabregas, Abou Diaby and Alex Song are all now certainties and depending on how the manager wants to go about things we might see Aaron Ramsey or Emmanuel Eboue in there with them. If it's a simple 4-4-2 I think we can expect to see Bendtner up front with Eduardo. Time in a central position will do both players good and with all due respect to Standard Liege both players will be eager to show Wenger what they can do from there in the hope they will be left there.

Taking into consideration Wenger's penchant for easing injured players back in I don't expect to see Tomas Rosicky start but I would l hope that both he and Jack Wilshere get a run out for the last 30 minutes. Its also encouraging to see Sanchez Watt get a ticket to Belgium. He may not appear on the pitch but some time hanging with the big boys and getting to experience some big game preparation is the next step for him in his development.

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