By Ian King
Premier League runners-up vs. Ligue 1 champions
Arsenal have reserved their best performances this season for the Champions League, whether the two-legged disembowelment of Real Madrid or rattling seven past PSV in Eindhoven. But the Premier League has been different, recently. They’ve drawn five of their last eight, and those ten dropped points are essentially the reason why Liverpool were celebrating at Anfield on Sunday.
PSG are already the champions of France but finally lost for the first time in Ligue 1 last weekend, 3-1 at home to Nice. They’ve already knocked out two Premier League teams in the Champions League knockout phase this season. They might not be invincible in Ligue 1 but everybody knows the threat they pose.
History
Omens are good for Arsenal, who beat PSG in the Cup WInners Cup semi-finals upon their first meeting in 1994. They drew the first leg in Paris 1-1, and won the second 1-0 at Highbury. They’ve remained unbeaten against PSG throughout three Champions League matches since then, including, of course, winning 2-0 at The Emirates in the MegaGroup last October.
Key Players
The key man in that match was Kai Havertz, and without his services this time around attention turns to Leandro Trossard, who is now chasing Havertz down as top goalscorer in all competitions, with his goal against Crystal Palace last week taking him to four short, on eleven. If they’re going to take a commanding lead to Paris, they may need more from him.
The biggest threat to their defence remains Ousmane Dembélé, who’s scored 32 in 44 in all competitions for PSG so far this season, though he now hasn’t scored in his last six. Bradley Barcola has been rather living in Dembélé’s shadow this season, but he’s scored 18 goals and is a threat, though it’s not even certain that he will start this game. If he doesn’t it’ll likely be Désiré Doué, who himself has scored 13.
Team News
Mikel Merino and Ben White have picked up knocks, but both are expected to start. But the bigger news is that Riccardo Calafiori may be returning to their squad for the first time since he picked up a knee injury during the last international break. PSG have no injury concerns at all.
Prediction
It’s easy to start checking out early from a competition that you can see fading from view, and this could be the reason for Arsenal’s patchy Premier League form of late. But they have been uniformly excellent in the Champions League, with only one defeat from twelve games – which came at the start of November – and home and away wins against Real Madrid already under their belt. PSG are good in Ligue 1. Properly good. But they’ve also lost five games in this season’s Champions League already, including one each to Aston Villa and Liverpool, and this contrast is why I’m saying 3-1 to Arsenal, and PSG to be left with much to do in Paris.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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