Champions League draw, Blackburn thoughts

It's quite late to be writing this, but I've got no choice on this Thursday evening. It's Friday afternoon as you read this, but as I'm straight out after work the laptop must again be left at home and I guess I feel the Champions League draw can't be ignored, so I wrote this yesterday. There is also the small matter of Saturday's match at Ewood Park to think about, a match where we will be able to welcome back Laurent Koscielny and Denilson to our matchday squad. I'm hoping just one of those two make the starting eleven, but I'll leave you to guess who.

So,it had to happen, didn't it? Thierry Henry returned to Arsenal with Barcelona last season, Robért Píres with Villarreal the season before that and Patrick Vieira was reunited with his most adoring public just months after leaving Highbury five years ago. And Eduardo will return to the scene of his wonderful beach goal on October 19th, alongside his new Shakhtar Donetsk team mates. Clearly, Eduardo wasn't able to give us the length of service that the Three Musketeers once did, but we all know that it was beyond his control. I can imagine our old number nine will be given a rapturous welcome, for at least as long it takes him to make an absolute monkey of Manuel Almunia. Actually, I'd quite like to see that, as long as we bang in enough goals at the other end to render it irrelevant.

Whilst our reunion with Eduardo is understandably at the forefront of most Gooners minds, there were two other teams to be drawn against and we ended up with Braga, last season's runners up in Portugal and Partizan Belgrade, who are the Serbian champions. I don't know too much about either of these teams, I haven't hit Wikipedia yet. I do know that Braga were the team that Sebastien Squillaci should have played against for Sevilla last week, so I'm sure he's looking forward to that one. Common consensus seems to be that we've got quite a kind draw, especially when looking at the likes of the European champions, Internazionale and Werder Bremen who are waiting for Tottenham. I think that we've got a lot of travelling ahead of us and I expect us to get our customary spanking in the Ukraine on the 3rd of November but, as I mentioned yesterday, we have a rather formidable record against European opposition at the Grove so I'm not anticipating too many problems.

Especially in light of the way the fixtures have been worked out. Where we could have been facing tough away days in Manchester after equally tough trips abroad, we have got two home games to look forward to instead, Ok, having to travel to Belgrade in the midweek before the Chelsea away game isn't ideal. But at least we've got a home game against West Brom before that trip, which you would hope some players might be rotated for. Not too many though, Arsène, I've got tickets! And of course, in terms of distance, London N5 to London SW6 is hardly the most arduous trip in the world. We'll also be back from Belgrade on Wednesday for a Sunday evening game. Which is a much better situation than coming back on Thursday for a Saturday lunchtime game. Similarly, our trip to the Ukraine is followed by a Sunday lunchtime game at home to Newcastle.

Saturday lunchtime at home to Tottenham, before travelling to Braga for a Tuesday match and then another Saturday lunchtime fixture at Villa Park is probably as bad as it gets for us. I think you'll agree it could have been much, much worse.

Saturday lunchtime provides a natural segue to the upcoming Blackburn match. If we like to consider our ground the (new) home of football, then perhaps we might consider Ewood Park the home of aerial bombardment, shirt pulls, obstruction and fouls; some off the ball, some sly, some not so sly. I think that as frustrating as it undoubtedly is to see our players cowed by physical intimidation, it's equally frustrating for the manager to watch his players kicked across some northern slagheap with the acquiescence of the referee at every turn. And that probably lay behind his comments today. That said, I fully expect the eleven players on display on Saturday to give a much better account of themselves than our surrender monkeys of last season. I guess it helps when you have nearly a full squad to choose from. I just hope we don't lose anyone else at the weekend.

I'was feeling bold and about to give you a team prediction, but then I realised I couldn't perm three from Walcott, Arshavin, Chamakh and RvP. So I've bottled it. It's not my job to make these kinds of decisions, and I'm glad, but the manager must also be glad to have these kind of decisions for problems- rather than worrying about playing Arshavin as a centre forward. I think Rosicky should start in central midfield with Song and Cesc. And... you know what? If it wasn't for RvP's magnificent record against Blackburn, I'd say we should stick with the front three we had on Saturday. But he does have that magnificent record, I think if we go there and are aggressive from the off we'll get the result, so my instinct is that he should be flanked by Walcott (how do you drop a hat trick hero?) and Arshavin. If it all goes wrong, well, at least we've got Chamakh on the bench.

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