Saturday round-up: Champions League draw and fixture rescheduling

Morning, let’s do a quick Saturday round-up.

The obvious place to start is the Champions League draw which took place yesterday, and we’re going to face Bayer Leverkusen. Perhaps the most interesting part of it all is the side of the draw we’re on, avoiding many of the so-called ‘big’ teams, at least until the semi-final stage. If we beat the German side, our quarter-final opposition would be one of Sporting or Bodo/Glimt, and the semi-finals should we get that far, would potentially see us face Premier League opposition should Newcastle overcome Barcelona and Sp*rs see off Atletico Madrid.

I suspect, quite strongly, if we do make that kind of progress it’ll be a trip to Spain but you never know in football, I guess. On the other side, there are interesting things to consider in the Premier League title race as Man City face Real Madrid (again), and if they win that one, they’ll play the winners of the Bayern Munich/Atalanta clash. I always say you take nothing for granted at this level, but it’s not unreasonable to suggest the draw has been relatively kind to us and City’s games are, on paper anyway, a bit more challenging.

And about time too, I say. How many times when we were in the Champions League season after season did we draw Barcelona or Bayern in the Round of 16? We had Real Madrid and PSG last season, and Bayern the season before. If there’s a difficult draw to be made, Arsenal have almost always got the hardest option, so if fans of other clubs are moaning about how it’s ‘easy’ for us, they can go stick it up their tailpipes. We finished top of the Champions League table, there ought to be some reward for that. I know that’s not how it always works, but this time it has.

Speaking about the draw at his press conference yesterday, Mikel Arteta said:

We are very excited to play the next round. We have earned the right to be in a strong position, what we’ve done in the group stage and that’s it. Now we need to start to analyse them and find ways to be better than them to try and go through the tie.

Playing it with a straight bat, as we’ve come to expect, but behind the scenes he must be delighted with how it panned out. I don’t necessarily believe in the stars aligning for us, because they can un-align pretty quickly if we don’t take care of what we need to do ourselves, but as I said, this is a kind draw and hopefully one we look at in a way which focuses us to make the very most of it.

The full draw is as follows:

Paris Saint-Germain v Chelsea
Galatasaray v Liverpool
Real Madrid v Manchester City
Atalanta v Bayern Munich
Newcastle v Barcelona
Atletico Madrid v Sp*rs
Bodo/Glimt v Sporting
Bayer Leverkusen v Arsenal

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As a nice way to start your Saturday, why not relive the last time we played Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, back in 2002? Coincidentally, February 27th 2002, the day Arseblog was born! The Arsenal team that day was – Seaman, Dixon, Stepanovs, Campbell, Lauren, Grimandi, Vieira, Pires, Wiltord, Bergkamp, Henry – and it features one of the great Dennis Bergkamp goals.

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Meanwhile, a consequence of the Champions League draw, which sees our second leg played on Tuesday March 17th, is that our game against Everton which was already scheduled for Sunday March 15th, has now been moved to 5.30 on the Saturday instead. I think everyone understands that fixtures get shuffled around because of European progression etc, but the wording of the original rescheduling to the Sunday made no mention of the fact it might be then impacted by the Champions League, despite the fact those games are included in that announcement.

As such, lots of fans will have already booked travel and accommodation, and now find themselves scrambling at late notice to try and change those arrangements. At the very least, football clubs should provide that level of detail in their communications, because now there are going to be people out of pocket and potentially unable to attend. The level of inconvenience varies, of course, depending on individual circumstance, but it shouldn’t be up to fans to read between the lines to figure out there might be a potential issue – that’s on the club’s communications, plain and simple, which have to be better.

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Right, I’m gonna leave it there for now. I hope wherever you are you have a great Saturday, thanks so much for all the lovely messages and comments yesterday, it means a lot. If you need something to listen to, we have a preview podcast on Patreon right now, and I’ll be back here tomorrow to look ahead properly to the game against Chelsea.

Until then, take care.