I completely avoided football this weekend, on account of the Cup semi finals taking place and also a certain team being crowned champions. The good news is that as Arsenal fans we have something else to worry about tomorrow, but as I went to the pub yesterday with The Management for a spot of lunch in the sun, annoyingly I ended up being surround by City fans. Living in West London and a short tube ride to Wembley means you’re unfortunately in the flight path of gathering fans at this stage in the season, which isn’t ideal, but there you go.

What is ideal, is preparation and inspiration for the men’s team by watching the women qualify for the Champions League final yesterday with a 4-1 win over Lyon. Beat Real in the quarters, overcame a French side in the semi’s…I dunno…there’s some poetry and symmetry about it if The Arsenal men’s team can get over the line against PSG in the next week or so. Of course hopefully we can do it without the home loss; I’d prefer to see us win at home tomorrow night as I’ll be in the stadium, thank you very much!

Arteta will have his press conference today and thankfully because of the Champions League focus, he can bat away the talk of Liverpool lifting the league title. It will come back to him eventually, especially when we have to go up to Anfield to play them, but with nothing riding on it I’m sure we as fans will be a bit ‘meh’ about it. Arteta will need to use it as future motivation, but we can just give it the ol’ shoulder shrug emoji.

We can’t do that tomorrow night. We have to be ready. PSG warmed up for their game against us with a defeat on Friday night at home to Nice. That would normally come as somewhat  of a surprise and cause a few shockwaves across France and Europe, I suspect, but what I think it does show you is how PSG also have a similar mindset to us in our domestic campaign i.e. eyes are somewhere else. The played a pretty full and first choice XI too; Donnarumma, Hakimi, Marquinhos, Mendes, Jeves, Vitinha, Ruiz, Doue, Dembele and Kvaratskhelia all in the starting XI. They absolutely battered Nice on the stats (32 shots on goal and 13 on target!) and so it was clearly one of those Championship Manager style algorithm glitch games, but hopefully that might play some kind of minor psychological impact on the players who went out there and lost.

I don’t think it will be massive – they’re 20 points clear of Marseille and this was their first loss of the season – but if it gives them even the slightest of doubts in their minds going in to this massive tie against us, then I’ll take that.

There’s not really a lot else going on today, as you’d expect with the press conference later and the club understandably taking a bit of time this morning to congratulate the women for a well-won victory yesterday in Lyon. Having guided them to their first Champions League final since 2007, Renee Slegers appears to be doing a pretty impressive job with this Arsenal team, so let’s hope she and Arteta can make history together by being the first club to win both men’s and women’s Champions League’s in the same season. Of course what might be standing in the way for Arteta should we manage to overcome PSG is Barcelona men in the final (I think they’ll beat Inter over two legs) and for Slegers the women are imperious having smashed their league for the last two season’s and going for a third Champions League win in a row. So it’s an ‘odds against’ kind of goal, but this season may yet throw up a few more surprises, so let’s see what happens.

I’m goingt o leave it there for the day. Normally on a day like today I’d be looking at the opposition, their playing style and approach, but in Europe it feels a little different and weird to do that, because every team you come up against is the best in their respective leagues. There are no low blocks, PSG will come to dominate possession and use their rapid full backs to try to overload us, but you already know that. Everyone already knows so much more about European opposition, so I’m going to put a pin in any more thoughts and save it for tomorrow, when the real worrying starts in earnest.

Catch you guys and gals then.