Never have I been so glad of the frequency of games at this time of the season than now. On Sunday I managed to avoid stewing on the result to much, I had a little say on the Bournemouth game yesterday but thankfully, mercifully, we have a home match against Shaktar Donestk to focus on today.

And it really has to be one that we have to win.

Shaktar have a decent history in this competition. They’ve had plenty of quality players and have appeared in it a lot over the years, so there is obvious expectation from them that they will be no mugs. But this season they are a little inconsistent in all competitions, so hopefully that offers some crumbs of potential, because domestically they’ve lost two and drawn one of their opening nine games. In Europe they have drawn away to Bologna in which they were pretty much battered on the stats (just one shot on target in that game, four in total), as well as being absolutely battered by Atalanta in Ukraine, losing 3-0 at home with the visitors racking up 22 shots in total whilst on their travels. So on paper this looks like a game in which Arsenal and Arteta should be earmarking as one in which we look to assert our dominance not just in terms of technical quality, but also home advantage, as well as the fact that  the Shaktar players have had to travel 13 hours just to get to us (because of the war in Ukraine).

For them their focus will be on getting Sudakov on the ball; he’s their top scorer in the Ukrainian league with seven goals from midfield, as their number 10 and is their creative outlet. From what I’ve read (literally today so am not claiming to be an expert) he looks like a guy who is a box-to-box creative and can play across their midfield but predominantly as a number 10 behind the strikers. He sounds a little Odegaardy to me; good work rate, looks to cover a lot of ground, is the creative spark in their team. If we keep him quiet, we might go a long way to keeping Shaktar quiet too.

What we won’t see tonight is Odegaard, as Arteta confirmed that he is still out, which I think probably makes him an unlikely starter for Sunday, which is a big blow. I kind of had hopes that he might make the bench today, but perhaps that is the best we can hope for on Sunday. After tonight there will still be another five days to see how he recovers, so fingers crossed we at least have him close to the squad then. There’s at least better news on Bukayo; Arteta said “let’s see how he feels today” when he was doing his press conference yesterday morning, so that feels to  me like he’ll most likely be involved somehow. If not, then clearly it’s a precaution for Sunday so at least having Starboy back for that massive game will be good.

But regardless of who is fit there, I think this is a game in which we need to see a different approach to the weekend just gone. The set up wasn’t quite right, we didn’t have enough creativity in what looked like a side picked for function above everything else, so I hope we release the creative shackles a bit tonight. To my mind that means Martinelli comes in on the left, we move Trossard on the interior, play Havertz up top and then I personally would go with Gabriel Jesus wide right if Saka can’t start. He is a better presser than Sterling, I feel like he has more about his game, plus I think his confidence needs that build up. Given how much he seems to enjoy the Champions League, this feels like a game tailor-made for him; at home, opponent we should expect to create plenty of chances against – it just feels like it might be a valuable boost for him.

The back line will pick itself for this week, with maybe Arteta bringing in Timber if he’s ready to play, although if he can I suspect he’ll want to share Timber and White minutes, because I think if you look at Saliba’s absence on Sunday, it does feel as though we might need both of them to start at the weekend. So personally I’d probably go White for 60, Timber for 30 tonight, which has enough minutes in both of their tanks for the visit of the Scousers.

There are questions around whether or not to include Nwaneri from the start tonight, which I would not be 100% against, given how impressive every single cameo he’s had in the big competitions this season, but I think Arteta will continue to manage his minutes and I suspect he’d rather go back to the approach that has worked in previous games where Trossard and Havertz play centrally and then rotate their responsibilities across different parts of the pitch. I think that is a more likely starting situation than giving the 17-year-old minutes.

There’s not a lot else to focus on for this match other than these Arsenal players going out there and getting the job done. You absolutely cannot be complacent at this level and in this competition, but it is an opportunity to get back on the horse, to remove the bad taste of defeat from the metaphorical mouths, then hopefully look ahead to a massive game at home to title rivals Liverpool. But those players need to have minds fully focused on the Ukrainians tonight. Fail to do that and a bad week could look a lot worse.

Back tomorrow with some post match thoughts.