{"id":14715,"date":"2026-11-03T17:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=14715"},"modified":"2026-11-03T17:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:18:18","slug":"arsenal-aspire-to-inspire-in-city-of-100-spires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=14715","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal Aspire to Inspire in City of 100 Spires"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On Wednesday evening the Arsenal play SK Slavia Prague for the sixth time in the club\u2019s history. So far Arsenal remain unbeaten against the Czechs, having won three and drawn two of their five previous encounters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first meeting took place in our second season at the Emirates, on 23rd October 2007 in the Champions League, and resulted in a mighty 7-0 win. Cesc Fabregas, Alexander Hleb and Theo Walcott scored two each in that win with The Greatest Striker That Ever Lived rounding off the seven. I was there for that memorable evening of Wengerball at its finest. A brilliant performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The return leg, a mere two weeks later, produced something of a turnaround and a 0-0 draw in the Czech Republic. Anyone travelling to this week\u2019s fixture will find themselves now heading for \u201cCzechia\u201d. In case you share my confusion, the new moniker is the country\u2019s short geographic name (adopted apparently as long ago as 2016!) while The Czech Republic remains its full formal name. Why have I bothered to go into such detail about the country\u2019s name? Only because while looking up the explanation, I was very surprised to find a similar example much closer to home. France, apparently, is only the short geographic name for that country\u2019s full formal name which remains The French Republic. I have never heard anyone use it outside of a history lesson, far too many years ago. Every day remains, for me at least, a school day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our other games against Slavia have proved somewhat all or nothing – a 1-1 draw and a 4-0 win in the Europa League in April 2021, and a 3-0 away win in the Champions League in November last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Opposition\u00a0<\/strong>
To give them their proper name, Sportovni Klub Slavia Praha – bless you! – was founded in November 1892 by medical students in Vinohrady, Prague, as a literary and cycling club. It lasted only three years and was succeeded by a new club in 1895. The new iteration was initially focused on cycling, and expanded to include football in 1896. On 25th March of that year, Slavia won their first match against AC Prague 5-0. Four days later they played against Sparta Prague in a 0-0 draw and the country\u2019s main rivalry, which continues to this day, had begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1905, the Scottish manager and former Celtic player, Johnny Madden brought new tactics and views on football to the club. He managed to set up an early golden age for the club that lasted 25 years. They won their first league title in 1913 and then mirrored Arsenal\u2019s own decade of dominance in the 1930s. In the 1934 World Cup the Czechoslovak team included eight Slavia players.\u00a0Madden retired from both Slavia and professional football at the age of 66, though he remained in Prague for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1940s Slavia enjoyed a second period of domination led by Josef Bican from Admira Vienna and produced titles in 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1943 while many Czech footballers were away at war, and then again in 1946\/47. The 1950s and 1960s brought a decline in their fortunes. They were relegated twice in the early 1960s but returned to the top flight in 1965.
Since the foundation of the Czech league in 1993 they have won nine league titles – and a host of domestic cups. They mirrored another Arsenal achievement in their 2020\/21 title winning season by going undefeated and setting a Czech record for the longest top-flight unbeaten league run of 54 games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Europe they have a good record in the Europa League with quarter and semi final appearances in 1996, 2019 and 2021. Their Champions League qualifications came in 2007\/8, 2019, 2025 and obviously this season too. They finished last season\u2019s campaign in 34th place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are an expert on European football you may recognise the name of the Slavia manager, Jindrich Trpisovsky, who has been in post since 2017. I didn\u2019t. I also didn\u2019t recognise the name of a single one of their squad and will risk your disappointment by not attempting to go into any detail about them. In a search for famous names amongst their former players I found Vladimir \u0160micer, Karel Poborsk\u00fd, Patrik Berger, Vladimir Coufal and Tom\u00e1\u0161 Sou\u010dek. Sorry, but that was it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They currently lead the Czech First League by 7 points from Mlad\u00e1 and Sigma after 13 games – for context Sparta Prague are a point further behind in fourth place, but we really should be quite confident of beating them – whoever and however they play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arsenal<\/strong>
Although this is a Champions League game, the level of opposition should allow for some significant rotation. The game at Anfield will have taken a lot out of the players and another physical challenge awaits in less than three days when Hull City visit the Emirates. And, after all, those rotated in to my suggested XI include two Spanish World Cup winners, four England internationals and a Brazilian international and an Ecuadorian international.\u00a0Sunday\u2019s starters can switch to being finishers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think Mikel Arteta will start Tzolis again, so soon after an albeit impressive return from injury, and Madueke has little option but to continue at the moment after a much improved appearance against Liverpool. Konsa and Gabriel seem certain to continue their partnership, with Mosquera to come on if we are comfortable. Hinkapi\u00e9 is a more natural fit with Eze on the left for me, as he is a bit more stable in position while Eze tends to drift inside. There has been mention of a slight muscle injury for Eze but he was fit enough for the bench at Anfield and is expected to be available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The player I really don\u2019t know what to do with is Viktor Gy\u00f6keres. He should be able to bang a few in against last season\u2019s 34th placed team but he even looked lost against Fleetwood Town last week. He came on at Anfield to relieve Kai Havertz but made bad decisions and repeatedly lost the ball. For that reason I\u2019ve left him out and picked Mikel Merino up front as he is technically far superior and has a great scoring record both for us and for Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the squad players need to play if they are to find and maintain form. The eleven I\u2019ve chosen would, I think, still be the envy of most Premier League sides, and that is without even considering William Saliba and Bukayo Saka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, I\u2019d start with:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya; White, Konsa, Gabriel, Hinkapi\u00e9; Zubimendi, MLS, Guimar\u00e3es; Madueke, Merino, Eze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Other News\u00a0<\/strong>
Apparently there will not be any pre-match photographs taken at the Fortuna Arena as the club photographer was badly injured at the weekend. He was taking a group photo at a wedding reception when a huge block of cheddar fell on him. The people in the photo had even tried to warn him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, a violinist in the Prague Philharmonic noticed that he couldn\u2019t keep his violin in tune so he asked the conductor of the orchestra if he could help. “Take it to Opporknockety,” said the conductor. “He is a genuine violin expert.” The violinist packed his things and made the trek to the village where the expert lived. Sure enough, Opporknockety fixed the problem and the violin sounded great. A few years later, the violinist noticed that his instrument was once again failing to stay in tune. The violinist said to his conductor, “I guess I’ll have to take it back to Opporknockety.” “No, you can’t,” said the conductor, “Opporknockety only tunes once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Finally<\/strong>
Clock End Rider and son, 21CG are travelling to Prague for this one. Safe journeys to them. Enjoy the game wherever you\u2019re watching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kick off is 20.00 UK time. TV coverage on TNT Sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come on you Reds!\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday evening the Arsenal play SK Slavia Prague for the sixth time in the club\u2019s history. So far Arsenal remain unbeaten against the Czechs, having won three and drawn two of their five previous encounters. The first meeting took place in our second season at the Emirates, on 23rd October 2007 in the Champions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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\/14715"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14715"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14722,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14715\/revisions\/14722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}