Here we are again at the start of a new Champions League campaign having been able to navigate past a tricky Udinese side. This time however the expectations for us to win the tournament are much lower after the summer we just had. We have lost players with vast experience in this competition and only time will tell how the likes of Arteta and Gervinho will fare in what will be their debut season in the competition.

First up we face the reigning German Champions Borussia Dortmund.

Being a fan of the Bundesliga I can say they were absolutely brilliant last season but what made their triumph even more special was the fact that they were on the verge of bankruptcy just a few years back. They appointed Jurgen Klopp as their manager whose philosophy is very similar to Arsene’s and he won the league title with a team that had an average age of 22 years. Their style of play is very similar to ours in that they like to keep the ball and are very dynamic in attack, again like us, they play the 4-2-3-1 formation.

With that being said who makes Dortmund tick?

Over the summer we were continuously linked to their German protΓ©gΓ© Mario Goetze who notched up 17 assists last season. For those who have not seen him in action he plays on the right of their attack cutting in from the wing. Some quarters have gone as far as to say as he is very similar to Messi, whoever plays on our left will have their hands full, he is very dangerous.

Despite Goetze’s talents Dortmund have had to cope with the loss of Nuri Sahin who was their midfield general much like Fabregas was for us. They replaced him with Gundogan who has yet to hit the heights Sahin did.

Their defence is rock solid especially in the central positions, they have Hummels and Subotic in there who are absolute monsters. Subotic is the most aggressive of the pair much like Vermaelen for us with Hummels sweeping up behind him.

We should also be on the lookout for their left back Schmelzer who also had an excellent breakout season last year and I believe we willΒ  have our work cut out if we are to score today.

Things have not been rosy for Dortmund so far this season, their start to the league campaign has been poor.

They sit 11th after 5 games but we shouldn’t underestimate them, they will be highly motivated for this game. Today we’ll play at the Signal Iduna Park which is the biggest capacity stadium in Germany and can hold a maximum of 80552 fans and Dortmund boast some of the best attendances in Europe.

I expect the crowd to be rocking from the onset and we’ll need our experienced players such as Mertesacker, Robin and Sagna to provide cool heads tomorrow, I can assure you the atmosphere will be intimidating.

Enough about them for now.

Here’s theΒ  travelling squad:

Andrey Arshavin
Mikel Arteta
Yossi Benayoun
Marouane Chamakh
Johan Djourou
Gervinho
Kieran Gibbs
Lukasz Fabianski
Emmanuel Frimpong
Laurent Koscielny
Per Mertesacker
Ju Young Park
Andre Santos
Bacary Sagna
Alex Song
Wojciech Szczesny
Robin van Persie
Theo Walcott

Walcott travelling to Germany is a mystery, he received a yellow card in both fixtures against Udinese so should he not be suspended for tonights fixture?

Arsene Wenger is for sure, he will have to watch this one from the stands courtesy of a 2 match ban imposed on him by UEFA.

We have not had a good start to the season so far but all is not lost, our victory over Swansea had some positives to build up on.

With the return of Gervinho we can only hope that our attack improves, against Swansea we lacked off the ball movement up front which Gervinho provides and our midfield will be much stronger with Song in there.

Let’s hope the extra few days of training have helped our new players bed in more as today is a massive game for us. A win tonight will give our players a big boost of confidence that will help us build momentum to put our season back on track.Β  A draw won’t be the worst result but we must avoid losing.

It will be difficult to get a resultΒ  it Germany but it can be done, our players just have to believe they can win and to give it their best shot.

Regulars on this blog know that Dortmund are my second favourite team but today it’s all about Arsenal. We may be outsiders to win the Champions League but anything can happen in football as Liverpool in their triumph in Istanbul proved.

Let the long European journey to Munich begin and wouldn’t it be spooky if we ended up back in Germany in May 2012.

Well wouldn’t it??

Written by K-TR7