With four points from two tricky opening games in the Champions League, Arsenal have had a decent start to their campaign, but they will arrive at The Emirates for their third match against Shakhtar Donetsk in a tetchy frame of mind.
By Ian King
Because regardless of the debate over the sending off of William Saliba during the match, there was little question that losing 2-0 at Bournemouth on Saturday was both their worst result and worst performance of the season so far. It was, considering that they’d just come back from an international break, a surprisingly tired looking performance from the title-chasers.
Saliba will start against Shakhtar (his one game suspension comes against Liverpool at the weekend), but Arsenal’s list of absentees remains long. Martin Ødegaard is unlikely to return until the end of the month and Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber will both face fitness tests before the match.
Shakhtar Donetsk have had a slightly troubled start to the season, both in this competition and domestically. In the Champions League they started off with a reasonable goalless draw away to Bologna, but their second game ended in a 3-0 ‘home’ defeat to Atalanta (they’re playing their home matches in Lviv, 1200 kilometres from home, at the moment due to Russia’s invasion). For what it’s worth, they are currently in 27th place out of 36 in UEFA’s new, byzantine Swiss Model group stage.
Their league season got off to a surprisingly weak start, losing two of their first three matches, but they’ve recovered since then, with a five match unbeaten run having lifted them back up to fourth place in the Ukrainian Premier League behind Dynamo Kyiv, Oleksandriya and Polissya Zhytomyr, and six points off the top of the table. Despite the obstacles being thrown in their way, Shakhtar are expected to be pretty much at full strength.
These two sides have met four times before, stretched across two Champions League groups a decade apart. In 2000/01 Arsenal won 3-2 at Highbury but lost the return match 3-0. A decade later, and by this time at The Emirates, they won 5-1 but then lost the return match 2-1. The Gunners will start this match as strong favourites to win, especially since the nature of their defeat on the south coast of England and the weekend surely demands one. Mikel Arteta surely knows that he needs a big performance in this match.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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