Eyes on Madrid..

Morning all.

I know Arsenal face a huge task tomorrow night against a Sporting Lisbon side who will be out to overturn our 1-0 lead, but it’s hard not to look at tonight’s game between Atletico Madrid and Barcelona and wonder who we could potentially face. Atletico are 2-0 up going into tonight’s home leg but we all know what Barcelona are capable of. It has the making for a fantastic game one which I’m sure the world be watching. Apart from PSG and Liverpool fans of course as those two clubs go head to head again at Anfield with Slots team also trailing 2-0.

As said, we have a slender 1-0 lead going into tomorrow’s game and in the other quarter-final fixture, Bayern Munich are leading Real Madrid 2-1 going into the second leg in Germany. 

When it comes to this stage of the competition, every opponent is tough. Getting a result tomorrow night will be tough, very tough if we play as we have in the last few matches. The fans will be up for it I’m sure, despite their clear disappointment at the weekend, it’s up to Arteta and his players to keep them interested. 

It’s been confirmed that Anthony Taylor will referee our game against Man City on Sunday and John Brooks will be on VAR. Interestingly, Manchester born Taylor officiated the Community Shield between Arsenal and Chelsea in 2015 which Arsenal won 1-0 and he refereed the 2017 Community Shield and FA Cup finals, both between Chelsea and Arsenal, both which Arsenal won 2–1.

When I think of Anthony Taylor and Arsenal, I can’t help but think back to 2017 (yes, I had to check the year) when we were leading 1-0 against Burnley when referee Jon Moss awarded the away team a penalty in the dying minutes of the game. Arsene Wenger was incandescent and more than made his feelings clear which resulted in him being sent off. As Taylor helped the Frenchman to the stands, our manager pushed back and was subsequently charged by the FA for his actions. However, as Dyche thought he’d nicked a point off of ten man Arsenal, Moss awarded Wenger’s team a penalty when Ben Mee got his foot a bit too close to Laurent Koscielny’s head. Alexis Sanchez buried it and this time it was Dyche who was throwing his toys out the pram. Ha! A memorable day but only because Shkodran Mustafi had scored our opening goal. I bet you can’t guess which Arsenal player had been sent off. The following season, Arsene Wenger announced he be leaving the club at the end of the campaign, his last match a 5-0 thrashing of Burnley.

Anyway, that was a long time ago now and hopefully the memory has long since left Taylor’s mind as we need him and Brooks to be 100% impartial on Sunday. Honesty and consistency is all we can hope for. 

The same applies for tomorrow nights game too as we know when teams are up against it, any old trick in the book will do in order to try and gain an advantage. Yes, I include Arsenal in that.

Catch up later..