I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that i’m supremely confident about tonight. In truth, that home defeat to PSG rocked me a little, because I thought we would give a better account of ourselves. We’ve known about our profligacy in front of goal all season and I saw that Donnarumma made the most saves he’s had to make in the Champions League in that game, but he was still equal to them, we still came up short, they still managed to fend us off.

Tonight it will be harder. We don’t have our home fans behind the team, they will have the roar of the Paris locals, we will find ourselves up against a wall of noise and that always gives players an extra 10%. So I am expecting PSG to properly go for us early this evening. If the same happens tonight as happened in the first leg, this game could be over before it even gets started.

The difference between this match up and the two in the other semi final is night and day. A 7-6 win on aggregate for Inter Milan puts them through to the final, but the chaotic nature of that game and the first leg is in stark contrast to the cagey first leg, which I think will be the same tonight when our lads take to the field. PSG will go hard, go fast, hope to smash and grab an early goal and give us a few haymakers to see if they can floor us, so it’s important that we keep the guard up and try not to be embroiled in a basketball match, because if it is back to front with space, they will tear us apart.

For us we can at least draw on the positive that Thomas Partey will be back in the line up through suspension and whilst his form this season has been excellent, I think most of us Gooners would agree that it’s actually more about where it allows Arteta to position his other players that could be a benefit. Rice will move forward in to the left eight role. Merino will go back up top. But it also means we get to try to replicate the approach that worked against PSV and worked against Real Madrid.

The only difference is that PSG are a much better side than Real Madrid right now. PSG are lightning quick, they press hard and high and they will want to replicate the first part of the game last week by pushing us back and trying to force us to go long and hoof clear so they can recycle possession. After that game Arteta said that he spotted something and then corrected it and given that we were much better in the latter part of the first half and the second half, you have to take him at his word. My hope for this evening is that Luis Enrique has a blueprint, he executed it last week, Arteta now knows what it is and he has a way to counter it.

He was certainly bullish enough yesterday, talking about making history, about doing what we did in the first leg, but with a little more consistency, about how the players are very excited in training and there is positivity in the camp. All words you want to hear. But as the man himself said, now the time is to stop the talking and do it on the pitch. I feel like we left a little more of ourselves out there in the first leg; it didn’t feel like an Arsenal in Europe kind of game like we’ve seen this season. But to stand any chance of overcoming PSG, the team will have to be a lot better than they were just over a week ago. We have to take the chances presented to us. We have to get Saka in behind and we have to see more of the running power of Martinelli. Merino against Marquinhos has to be a better match up than Trossard was and for sure, more than anything else, Martin Odegaard has to turn up tonight. He was anonymous on Tuesday, so poor, which everyone has already pointed out, but we know there’s more of him that we’ve seen shine before. We aren’t getting anywhere tonight unless he steps up and gives us a captain’s performance. We cannot afford a single ‘six out of ten’ performance from any Arsenal player.

Rice was the man in front of the cameras yesterday and he was bullish too. His positive tone that he set was enough to instil a little bit of belief, but he also admitted that they have to be the ‘best version of ourselves’ to get a result tonight. As I’ve already mentioned, I don’t think that was the case last week, so unless we’re going to have this season peter out into nothing come tomorrow morning, those Arsenal players have to do everything to get the result. Throw every body at every ball, if your lungs are hurting because you’ve been sprinting too much, sprint that little bit further. Don’t wake up tomorrow morning knowing you could have done that little bit more to be in a final. It will haunt you forever.

Before the home leg I was surprisingly bullish about us winning this thing. After the defeat last week I have 180’d for obvious reasons. I still think we perhaps don’t have enough to get it over the line against what looks like the best team in Europe right now and who have a fully fit squad to call on, but I’m going to hold on to a little bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, this will be a year in which we aren’t terrible in Europe and can turn around things. Envoke the spirit of that Madrid performance, Arsenal, you’re going to need that mentality to see the final in Munich.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Fingers crossed.