Morning folks and welcome to match day Wednesday. We’ve got the last of our five home games today and it’s the final home game of this infernal Champions League Group stage, for which we welcome Croatian side Dynamo Zagreb to The Emirates. Standing on 13 points so far, it’s an opportunity for us to put one foot firmly in to the next round through automatic qualification and so a win tonight is pretty important, it has to be said. With just one game to play after this evening, if Brest and Inter drop points, it’ll mean we’re all but secured in the automatic playoff I think. So there’s a little bit of incentive there fore Arteta and his players.

He also confirmed that William Saliba is getting better in his press conference yesterday, saying that this game will come too soon for him, but the very fact he used those words suggests to me we might even be able to have him back for this weekend. That’s good news, as is the return of Calafiori and Nwaneri to training, meaning that Arteta’s options are starting to look a little better. Will both start this evening? I suspect it’s unlikely, but if they can get some minutes to bring them back up to speed, it means there is an option for them at the weekend when we travel to Wolves.

So who will start then?

I suspect it won’t be too different to the weekend’s disappointing draw at home to Villa and, having seen Arteta bristle at the comment about playing Kiwior in at centre half (which he’s done before, so I’m not sure I agree with his answer about him being a left-sided centre back), I think we’ll have “once more unto the breach” approach from Arteta this evening, which means Partey once again at right back. It’s a weird one because as I’ve said previously, apart from the two goals I don’t think he played poorly against Villa, but those lapses cost us and the very fact we have such a poor record with him there is more to do with shuffling too many parts of the system around. I’ve mentioned before that I’m sure Arteta has talked about not wanting to disrupt too many positions before (previously it was in relation to Ben White player as a centre half) and yesterday’s press conference he was on the front foot when asked about Partey, saying that Kiwior is a left-sided player playing in a wide right role which doesn’t work. He talked about not having a right footed player against a right winger, which was interesting, but against Villa we had Jacob Ramsey on the left, who is right footed, so I’m not sure that the analysis stacks up. It does sound like there was some method to his thinking and I suspect we’ll still see Partey tonight – I’m just saying that given the choice I think a lot of us would prefer we try some other option.

That could be Rice, but I suspect it won’t be and I don’t think Arteta is too keen on that idea, so I think tonight’s team will look the same as the weekend, perhaps with Sterling coming in for one of the wide positions. Of course Arteta could adopt the thinking of playing Martinelli and Trossard from the start, trying to get to a good lead and then bringing both off in the second half to preserve those tired legs. With Ethan and Sterling both set to be on the bench, that option is there, so we need to be mindful of that opportunity given that Wolves don’t play this midweek and we will need to go up against their tired legs.

As for Zagreb, they currently sit third in the Croatian league behind Rjeka and Hajduk Split, a solid seven points behind them and with a new manager in Fabio Cannavaro. He became manager three week’s ago and is yet to manage his first game for them, with the Croatian league having been on a hiatus since 22nd December. I can’t work out if that’s a good thing in terms of a rhythm and cadence of playing football matches and those famous ‘automatisms’, or whether it’ll end up being a benefit for them because they are fresh. He’s had a solid month to work with them on style of play, tactical approaches, etc, so they will be ready. We need to make sure we are too.

His arrival makes their approach also more difficult to assess and when I look at their team I can’t say there are any players that stand out to me as those that I’m aware of. Their danger man is Kulenovic, who has eight goals in the domestic league and to be fair to him he also has three in the Champions League too. Google Gemini (AI) has him as an atypical number nine and calls him a ‘bruiser’ and ‘relentless and just on that description alone you think it will need to be Gabriel’s job to have him marked this evening. But if he drifts off to Timber – who I think will play in that position – I suspect he’ll be able to handle him too; Jurrien is a little more stocky but we all have seen how the Dutchman is a bit of a hard man too.

What we do need to see is a better overall defensive performance in those individual moments, because I suspect tonight will be a bit like a lot of the games we’ve played recently, i.e. we’ll see most of the ball and our opposition won’t create chances, but they will have one or two openings. We just have to make sure this isn’t another ‘one shot, one goal’ kind of evening.

I’ll be there, I’ll be cheering the lads on and hopefully, I and you will be watching us get back to winning ways. It feels like we need this one after a spluttering and stuttering January so far.

Catch you all tomorrow for a debrief.