I have already written about the chances of Arsenal pulling off the incredible and finishing on top of our Champions League qualifying group. I don’t see us beating Galatasaray as the difficult part as they have been woeful, but we need Borussia Dortmund to lose at home to Anderlecht and that is pretty unlikely.
And as Arsene Wenger rightly said in a report on Arsenal.com, the Gunners could do with a bit more luck when the draw is made for the next round. With Bayern Munich twice and Barcelona iin three of the last four draws, you would hope that Arsenal get a slightly easier ride this season and there are some decent options out there for us, although the groups are not all decided yet.
Assuming we finish second, then we could face Leverkusen, Monaco or Zenit who could all still top group C, while Atletico Madrid or Juventus could win group A. Neither of those club is exactly easy but I would prefer them to Barcelona, Bayern or Real Madrid. And PSG could still finish above Barca if they avoid defeat in the Nou Camp in the final game. Then you have Porto who have already won group H.
But the most important thing for Arsenal is to get our own house in order before this draw, as the boss says. There are signs of that happening finally, however, and unless we keep having bad luck with injuries, the squad should be a lot stringer with the likes of Ozil, Walcott, Debuchy and maybe even Wilshere back. The Frenchman was asked how we could go further than previous years.
He replied, “First to send a different guy for the draw. If you look at the last five or six years we got the teams we didn’t want. From now until February we need to improve as a team, get encouragement from tonight’s game and then hope we have nearly all our players back in the next round. You see who is qualified around Europe and there are many teams who are at the top, top level. There are three or four teams you don’t want to play.”
Also, we are all hoping that Wenger signs a quality centre back and defensive midfielder at the very least when the transfer window opens in January. Depending on who we sign, they may be able to join the UCL squad, so with a bit of luck on injuries and with the draw, do you think Arsenal could be in for a better run in the tournament this season?