For most weeks of this campaign, it seems that the matches played have been ‘the biggest of Arsenal’s season’. Tonight, the sobriquet actually fits. It is exactly that although progression to the next round will relegate it to the group of fixtures that have the words ‘so far’ tacked on the end.

Liverpool have a slight edge with the away goal but it puts both teams under pressure. The advantage disappears if Arsenal score first whilst this round brings forth the same scenario as the Milan second leg, score to stay in the competition; concede and you make life unnecessarily hard on yourselves.

Much has been written or said since the first leg about ‘what if’ or ‘what might be’. The Arsenal players need to reproduce the performance of the second half at Anfield in the League in October; dominating, slick, passing football that Liverpool could not contend with.

The problem is that Benitez has already set out his stall. In The Observer at the weekend, the Liverpool manager said,

Arsenal have a style that everyone knows. They can have plenty of possession, they can play long with Fabregas, they can play in between with van Persie or Hleb. We knew we needed to work hard. We knew they would have possession, so we needed to control, regain and play counterattack. Sometimes if you don’t have the pace or ability they have in some players, you have other qualities that you need to use – the pace of Torres, the quality of Gerrard and the rest of the team needs to work hard

Which is exactly how Liverpool have played in the last two games. They have shut down the space between the midfield and attack from the kick-off, isolating the forwards from the rest of the team wherever possible. Anyone who doubts that they can do that again, should think again. Fabio Aurelio observed,

When you play teams like that it’s very difficult to mark them because they move the ball very quickly. So what you have to do is to close the gaps between your lines. That’s what we look for – being really compact and organised so they don’t have any spare space

The Liverpool players understand their limitations and are very well organised. Yet it all sounds like some sort of elaborate scam. Is it a bluff on Benitez’s part to fulminate publicly, knowing his game plan is to attack? Is the counter-bluff from Arsene and we will see him abandon his principle of not changing the way the team plays to counter the opposition. Or are they both bluffing each other into the thinking that and we will end up with a carbon copy of the first leg? Have I been listening to Radio 5Live too much to think of plots such as that? Probably. Either way, it is giving me a bluffing headache just thinking about it.

Arsene named his squad for the game yesterday and it contained no surprises, no rushing of Bacary Sagna back early and with the long term injured still being exactly that. The team will no doubt line-up in a 4-4-1-1 formation but I suspect it is unlikely that Robin van Persie will start the game. The midfield needs some solidity across the centre to match Liverpool, to contain them and eventually push them backwards. The wings will be inhabited by Eboue and Diaby with Flamini and Fabregas in the centre.

In allowing Hleb to roam, it gives him his most effective role and the freedom to create havoc. With that though comes a responsibility that he has shirked in recent months, namely scoring. It has been almost exactly five months since he troubled the statisticians in that department and like the rest of the team, Fabregas aside, his record of scoring in European ties is not good enough.

The young Spaniard is top scorer with four goals but after that, five players (van Persie, Eduardo, Adebayor, Walcott and Bendtner) have two apiece with Diaby and Hleb chipping in with a solitary strike. No defender has scored in the Champions League for Arsenal this season. Liverpool have twenty two goals in Europe compared to the sixteen of Arsenal. It indicates that this evening’s hosts are more ‘efficient’ at ‘putting away’ smaller European teams.

Problematically, we have started to slip into the habits of previous seasons; too reliant upon one man to score the goals, conceding soft goals. Before the start of the season, all of the squad said that they had to score more frequently and initially that is what has happened. However, recent form suggests that since the three goal win over Newcastle in the League, only at Birmingham and Bolton has the rest of the team scored more than once in a match which is the core problem that has to be overcome. That said, one goal tonight could be enough.

For the match tonight, I would expect the line-up to be,

Almunia; Toure, Gallas, Senderos, Clichy; Eboue, Fabregas, Flamini, Diaby; Hleb; Adebayor

With a bench of

Lehmann, Song, Gilberto, Hoyte, van Persie, Walcott

It allows Arsene the opportunity of two impact players if the situation requires retrieving, van Persie and Walcott. I can see this game being played pretty much as the second leg in Milan was, tight, cutting off Liverpool supply lines and then hitting on the counter. The problem is that Liverpool will probably set themselves the same so the cut and thrust one of the previous round will be missing to a certain extent.

The pressure on both teams is the same; an early goal conceded changes the dynamic of the tie. Neither wants to be on the receiving end of that which suggests a tense affair.

For those who need some sort of ‘outside influence’ to cheer them on their way, there have been a couple of quirks this season. Both teams have drawn consecutive games 1 – 1; in the third game, Liverpool drew 1 – 1 whilst Arsenal won 3 – 0. Curiously enough, in Liverpool’s run, two of those games were away games with Arsenal’s draws both being at home. Which is about the only positive you can draw because the referee has officiated three Arsenal CL ties and one involving Liverpool; the two teams have won each match.

Enjoy the match wherever you are watching it. ‘til Tomorrow.