Well, here we are then. It’s impossible to understate the importance of tonight’s match. Not because of qualification for the Champions League next season but because a win, or a draw, tonight would put us into the final of this season’s competition. It’s the furthest we’ve ever come in this competition, we take a one goal lead into the second leg and we’re never really going to have a better chance of getting to the final of football’s premier cup competition.
Arsene Wenger named his squad yesterday and as expected Philippe Senderos is missing. He could miss three weeks with a knee ligament injury and he must be gutted having played such a massive part in getting us this far. It says a lot about how quickly things change in football that some of us are nervous about Sol Campbell coming back in his place. He hasn’t played a lot of football this season and what he has played hasn’t always been good. All we can hope is that he’s put whatever issues he has had behind him and he performs as well as we know he can even though we haven’t seen that level from him a while. The choice between him and Djourou was a ‘ small gamble’ according to Arsene Wenger but the boss is confident Campbell can perform saying “I trust his qualities and his strengths. This is what you dream of and to be in this position. I wouldn’t dream of a better way to come back. He is physically alright and he will be OK.â€
Gael Clichy is in the travelling squad of 19 and other than that there are no major surprises. Thierry Henry thinks the fact that Villarreal need a goal will suit as and Arsene Wenger expects a more attacking side than the one we saw at Highbury. I don’t think they’ll be that different though. There is no way they’re going to come at us gung-ho and leave space behind for us to exploit with Henry’s pace. Certainly not in the first half and I don’t think they’ll really start getting adventurous until there’s about 20 minutes to go if it remains scoreless. Then they obviously have to start taking chances but the last thing they’re going to do is leave themselves open to the away goal which would effectively kill the tie.
It’s going to be a very similar game to the first one and what they do have on their side is the advantage of playing at home and slightly fresher legs than hours having rested almost all their first XI this weekend. They also welcome back goalkeeper Sebastian Viera who came close to signing for us this summer only for the deal to be called off at the last minute. They also have centre-half Peña back to add some experience to their defence. Apart from that there’s not much else to tell you about them. We all know who the dangermen are already and we need to be extra careful around José Mari again tonight as he’ll be using the baying home crowd to make his dives seem even more realistic. Again all we can hope for is that we get a strong referee.
From our point of view we need the same as we have needed since the first Madrid game. We’re going to play the 4-5-1 formation again with Ljungberg back in the side ahead of Pires and José Antonio Reyes on the left. We just need to be organised, hard working and maybe we need a little more help defensively from the midfield as Campbell is a bit of a worry at the back from the point of view that he’s coming into a back four he has little experience of playing with. Despite the fact an away goal will pretty much win the game for us I don’t expect us to go all out either. As I said above it’s going to be very cagey as both sides know how important the first goal is.
The Madrigal is a small, noisy ground but I don’t think the players will be affected by that. If you can go to Madrid and Turin and get results you can go anywhere and get one. We need Cesc to pull the strings in midfield and hopefully he’s recovered enough from his foot injury not just to play but to feel comfortable playing. Thierry is obviously the main danger, particularly if they do start to attack in numbers and we can hit them on the break, but it wouldn’t be unfair to look for a goalscoring contribution from either Reyes or Bloody Ljungberg who need, perhaps, to convert their hard-work into something more substantial. In a tight game with the midfield likely to be packed it might just be made for the close control and pacey running of Hleb to create something.
It’s going to be an exciting night and by exciting I mean nail-biting, butterflies in stomach, twitchy legtastic. It’s only 9am here and I’ve already got a turtle’s tail. To those of you going give it loads, we’ll all be cheering on with you. “Red Army!”
We’re 90 minutes away from the Champions League final everybody. Come on you reds!
