{"id":12188,"date":"2025-11-03T20:43:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T20:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12188"},"modified":"2025-11-04T22:52:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T22:52:30","slug":"czech-champions-challenge-table-topping-gunners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12188","title":{"rendered":"Czech Champions Challenge Table Topping Gunners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Premier League leading Arsenal resume their Champions League campaign Tuesday evening in the Czech capital against Slavia Prague, having kept three consecutive European clean sheets, away against Athletic Club in Bilbao and home to Olympiacos and Atletico de Madrid for an impressive goal difference of 8-0.  What with Arsenal\u2019s domestic defensive form being nearly as stingy of late, the Czechs could find scoring a bit of a conundrum but I have no doubt they will be willing to give it their best shot.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last time Arsenal faced Sparta in this competition, in October 2007, Alexander Hleb and Theo Walcott were among the goal scorers as the Gunners thrashed Sparta by 7-0.  It is doubtful that we might see such an unbalanced contest again, and we certainly won\u2019t see the same faces but I have a feeling that Arsenal may have enough to keep their unstained European record intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slavia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slavia Prague are the defending Czech league champions, and this season they are tied for the league lead with rivals Sparta Prague on 30 points after 14 matches played.  In Champions League competition, Slavia drew their lone home match 2-2 with Bod\u00f8\/Glimt, before losing by three goals at Inter Milan, and playing a goalless draw at Atalanta.  They are not really among the elite of Europe, but they will be playing before a raucous crowd on one of the biggest home fixtures of their European season, so they will pose a real threat no matter the names of the players they put out on the night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal Team News<\/strong>

The media reported after Saturday\u2019s efficient 2-0 win at Burnley that Viktor Gy\u00f6keres felt a niggle which made the boss decide not to let him play in the second half.  Martin Zubimendi was subbed off after feeling some muscular discomfort, but he wasn\u2019t available for Slavia in any case.  Zubimendi practiced today (Monday), and hopefully both players will be back for Sunderland away next weekend if not for this match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mikel Arteta may decide to rest Declan Rice to ensure he doesn\u2019t pick up a ban that would prevent him from facing Bayern in Arsenal\u2019s next Champions League game.  Rice should be an essential component of our midfield against Bayern so resting him for this one seems to me to be Mikel\u2019s best option.  But the boss may also rest a few others leaving Arsenal with a starting team something like this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White  Mosquera  Gabriel  Hincapi\u00e9<\/p>\n\n\n\n

N\u00f8rgaard  Merino  Lewis-Skelly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nwaneri Eze Trossard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2019holic pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

7-0 should not be on the cards but I have a feeling that our recent record of defensive stinginess will continue, and I also think that we may find scoring a bit easier than we have done recently on the domestic front, so I am predicting a good old 3-0 to the Arsenal.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the game, \u2018holics, and Come on you Gunners!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Premier League leading Arsenal resume their Champions League campaign Tuesday evening in the Czech capital against Slavia Prague, having kept three consecutive European clean sheets, away against Athletic Club in Bilbao and home to Olympiacos and Atletico de Madrid for an impressive goal difference of 8-0.  What with Arsenal\u2019s domestic defensive form being nearly as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12188"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12208,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12188\/revisions\/12208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}