Troubled Arsenal Seeks Champions League Boost

Arsenal will today take a 1-0 lead to Italy for the second leg of their UEFA Champions League play-off against Udinese.

Arsene Wenger’s men overcame the departure of Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona, and the absence of numerous key players, to take an early lead in the first leg, thanks to Theo Walcott. However, Udinese were unlucky not to nab an away goal and will be hopeful of turning the tide at home, especially as the English outfit’s fragile confidence took another hit at the weekend when they went down 2-0 at home to Liverpool.

That result meant the Gunners have now failed to score in their first two league games of a season for the first time in 42 years, while their hopes of stopping Udinese from scoring have been hit by a back injury to Laurent Koscielny. After the Liverpool reverse, a downbeat Wenger described the Udinese return as being “of big importance,” but it is difficult to know where the Gunners would go next if they fail to qualify for the group stages.

Robin van Persie and Samir Nasri are available again after suspension, but Nasri has moved his transfer to the Etihad Stadium of Manchester City.

Udinese do not begin their domestic campaign until next weekend, so Francesco Guidolin’s side have been able to focus all their energy on beating Arsenal and returning to the Champions League group stages for the first time since 2005/06.

Meanwhile, Bayern Munich who dream of going all the way to a final which will be held in their own Allianz Arena,  have more than one foot in the group stages after beating FC Zurich 2-0 in last week’s first leg. The Bavarians head to Switzerland further boosted by a superb performance in beating Hamburg 5-0 in the Bundesliga at the weekend.

Lyon prepared for the second leg of their tie with Rubin Kazan with an underwhelming 1-1 draw at Brest, but Remi Garde’s side impressed in their 3-1 win over the Russians last Tuesday. Rubin, who lie 10 points behind Russian league leaders CSKA Moscow with just nine games to go, have considerable selection problems just now, although new Paraguayan signing Nelson Valdez could feature.