Attention is being turned without and within to the latest ‘Battle of Britain’ in the Champions League that commences on Wednesday, a full preview will be here tomorrow. To whet the appetites though, Kolo Toure has kicked it all off from the Arsenal point of view by taking the view that last season’s meetings have some relevance to the Quarter-Final tie,

Last season we played them four times (meeting in the FA and Carling Cups as well as the league) and we showed how strong we were – we beat them in three of those games. It is going to be really tight, we know that, but we have the quality and I think they will be scared to play against us. We need to show them that we have continued to improve and are even stronger than last season

It seems that the nasty side Kolo referred to in a recent interview is shining through but in a really nice way. Which is of course, no real surprise because whenever I have heard the man respond to questions, he seems to be a ‘bloody nice bloke’. I doubt that Liverpool are scared of playing us but they, like Arsenal, would have preferred Schalke or Fenerbahce. But the Football Gods deemed it necessary to ensure that at least one Premier League team shall visit Moscow this Spring and I have a hankering that it will be the winner of this tie.

Meanwhile it seems that Arsene is like a lot of us, scarred by the Parisian defeat to Barcelona,

When I look back, I think of the opportunity we had to score the second goal that would have killed off Barcelona. In fact we had two chances – the game was there to be taken

Oh, that it was. And for those of us with a wife of Catalan extraction, it was not a pleasant evening. Actually that is not fair on her as she was not the problem; the Barcelona-born Suegra was although even she recognised that more than thirty minutes of crowing was perhaps straining relations a tad, especially as she ‘officially’ supports Espanyol.

Talking of Spaniards, Fran Merida is featured in the May issue of FourFourTwo as one of ‘The Next Big Things‘ which if such ‘accolades’ have gone to his head, is not showing through. Comparisons with Fabregas are knocked firmly on the head by Merida himself,

I get compared to Cesc a lot, but as I’ve already said lots of times, we’re different. He’s already played in a World Cup and a Champions League final, and I’m just a kid who is learning the game. I hope I achieve what he has, but for now I’m taking it step by step

The true extent of his progress is put into perspective by Arsene, who at the same time also explains his transfer philosophy,

At the moment we play the young players so quickly in the reserve team – at 16 or 17 – that at 18 and 19 there is sometimes no challenge for them any more

Merida meanwhile looks set to be back at the club for next season as Arsene commented

He should be at Sociedad for six months

The issue of the magazine has its own take on the ‘100 Greatest Foreigners’ to take the stage in the English game and surprisingly, the Premier League’s marketing department have not managed to airbrush the preceding one hundred and five years out of the game. The former players listed are

• Nwankwo Kanu (#91)
• Emmanuel Petit (#55)
• Marc Overmars (#51)
• Anders Limpar (#42)
• Nicolas Anelka (#37)
• Freddie Ljungberg (#33)
• Robert Pires (#19)
• Patrick Vieira (#10)
• Thierry Henry (#3)
• Dennis Bergkamp (#2)

Their ‘Top Of The Pops’ was Eric Cantona and that should not be dismissed lightly for I suspect that you could put one hundred people in a room and find them equally split over the order of those three. What was pleasing though was the recognition of Anders Limpar; an infuriating player at times but for two reasons, he stands out. Firstly, he was a beacon of light in the George Graham era, something he shared with David Rocastle. More importantly, he was one of the most skilful players ever to don the red and white of the club. And the atrocious away kits of the that time as well. Those old enough to remember will (sort of) understand when I say that Limpar genuinely stands as a peer of Robert Pires, save for the fact that the Frenchman was more consistent but that has as much to do with the manner of Arsenal’s play than anything else. You might have to trust me when I say that had Arsene ever managed to get hold of Limpar in his prime, well, you would have been positively drooling over him. Curiously enough though, there was no mention of John Jensen in this ‘Hall of Fame’. Every time I mention him, I can still see the ball curling into the net in front of the North Bank. It was summed up though when his only Arsenal goal came in a 1 – 3 defeat at home to QPR…Oh, and Cesc was #46

’til Tomorrow.