It’s match day, it’s the league Cup Semi final, it’s Chelsea at the Emirates.

It is not exactly a ‘must win’, but certainly you want this Arsenal team to go out there tonight and deliver the kind of performance that sends messages to the rest of the world that we are ready to take the next step and get ourselves to a cup final.

Mikel was asked about whether this was the most important game of the season so far and his response was predictably “yes, the most important game because it’s the next one”, which you’d expect, but the team do need to get over the line in something and whilst a few week’s back I was happy with the 3-2 win and half a job done at Stamford Bridge, now that this game has come around, I feel a little more apprehensive.

This tie should have been buried at their ground. We outplayed them, we created better chances, more chances, we looked in control, yet they were given a couple of opportunities by our silly play defensively, so now they have something to fight for on our turf. We need to nip that in the bud early tonight I reckon.

I suspect the opening salvo’s from both teams will be relatively tentative. There might be a bit of shadow-boxing going on, because Chelsea will know that the tie can be taken out of their hands if they go too gung-ho and allow Arsenal to score early. They will also know that with one goal in it, if they are still level with us with 20 minutes to go, a game can be nicked. I remember that horrible Champions League tie in 2004 where Wayne Bridge scored. It was against the run of play, they didn’t deserve it, but they got the goal and they went through, whilst we crashed out to a team certainly nowhere near as good as ours was back then. We can’t allow that kind of situation to unfold tonight and for that reason, I do think Arteta will think hard about how strong his team is. I do think he’ll give Kepa the nod, I think Madueke starts against his old club (and hopefully with enough of a chip on his shoulder from the away game in the League earlier in the season), but there are lots of questions that could be asked about midfield and defence I think. Personally, given we do need to rotate this squad, we need to be leveraging some of the players who didn’t get on against Leeds, so my take on a team I’d put out for tonight is:

Kepa

White   –   Mosquera   –   Gabriel   –   MLS

Norgaard

Odegaard   –   Eze

Madueke   –   Gabriel Jesus   –   Martinelli

Hopefully, given that Arteta said Saka is touch and go for this game, we just don’t risk him. Noni will be full of confidence following his performance up at Leeds and given the heckles he got from Enzo and that rat-bag Cucurella, I think he’ll have some extra motivation to perform. He’ll also be doing it on our home turf, so he’ll get more love and the backing of the home crowd, albeit a reduced one because of the bigger allocation the organiser’s give to away sides. Havertz has started two in a week and so I don’t think it’s prudent to start him, Timber and White are perfectly interchangeable, plus I think Mosquera has done enough to show he can be a perfectly good deputy for Saliba. Big Gabby offers the stability at the back and can support Myles, who I think needs some more game time. I also think that him starting this match, a big match, will hopefully allow us to get more confidence from him; we want to see a return of last season’s MLS and I feel like for big games he does tend to step up. Let’s hope so today.

I’ve also gone for the two creative eights in Odegaard and Eze. I think I’m not really in full belief Arteta will do it though; Chelsea rested a lot of players at the weekend against West Ham, so they are going to go with Caicedo and Enzo for their physicality. which means I suspect he’ll start Rice instead of Eze. But I just have a hope that we can see more of those two. perhaps the game against Sunderland at the weekend would be something where we’re more likely to see Martin and Ebs start, rather than tonight.

And speaking of physicality, I think the home crowd has a part to play too, because Chelsea are a horrible team who come to kick people. If they do that on our turf, those home fans need to be on them. We need to be howling at every challenge they make, putting the referee under pressure to act, because that’s how they will set up to kick lumps out of us, so we need to be able to react in a professional way – be the better team and just show that by outplaying them.

Three week’s ago this felt like a formality. Now it feels a lot closer. Those Arsenal players can show the gulf in class, but with the recent 3-2 defeat to United on our own patch still ever-so-slightly lingering in the background, it’s a good opportunity to vanquish that by getting a good home win.

Right, I’ll call it for today I think, so I’ll catch you guys tomorrow when we are all aware of our fate. Speak then.