Arsenal Awaits Its Champions League Fate

Today is the day we find out our fate in the Champions league as the draw for the quarter finals is made. The draw for the semifinals will be made too, so we should know our route to the final before the day is out.

I have no real personal preference at this stage as I still think the league should be our first priority and any further progress in the Champions league is a bonus.

The most important thing for me will be the league match at home to Wolves in between the two legs of the semi final.

That game is on Easter Saturday, April 3. Before that we play at home to West Ham this Saturday and away to Birmingham the Saturday after that.

The West Ham game is one we should win and win easily, but the trip to Birmingham a week later will be a different story. Thankfully the Wolves game between the Champions league quarterfinals is at home and after the second leg we will have a possible trip to our local rivals the Spuds.

The chances are that we won't have any game that weekend though as the Spuds could be playing an FA Cup semi final against Portsmouth if they can overcome Fulham in their replay next week.

There are a lot of ifs, and, ands buts in there, I know, but if it all works out in our favour, we could have the required recovery time between all of those tough games.

We're really reaching the business end of the season now and a lot of teams have games in hand to make up on other teams. There are five midweek Premier league games this week and if you're a Fantasy footballer it's worth having a very close look at the fixtures.

From my own perspective my team is on the way back up the rankings again at last after a bad run recently took me out of the top 50,000 teams overall.

With over 2 million teams in the competition overall I suppose it's not too bad but after hovering around the top 10,000 for a while it doesn't seem all that good.

There are still a few games that have not been scheduled at this stage due to cup commitments and Aston Villa in particular have two games to set a date for yet.

The early news ahead of tomorrow's game is that Cesc, Rosicky and Vela will all be back from injury and Song is available again after suspension.

Amazingly we didn't lose any players to injury after last week's game despite the best (or should I say worst) efforts of Hull.

The boss was worried about what he called the "endless" injury that Gallas has, as he has missed six games already and he looks set to miss at least two more.

If that forecast is right, it should see him return to the team for our Champions league quarter final and that would be a welcome boost.

Between now and then, we have no midweek games at least, which should mean that Campbell can play in those next two games and Silvestre can continue to keep the bench warm. 

Traore made a statement on the club site about his interview in which he supposedly said that his dream is to join PSG. He said that his actual dream is to break into the Arsenal first team and play for Arsenal every week.

He also said that he was annoyed about being misquoted about his comments on PSG. He grew up in Paris and supported PSG and he would possibly like to play for them some day, but he is under contract at Arsenal and committed to the club.

He has eight appearances in the league this season and he would like the chance to get two more to claim a league winners medal if Arsenal can win the league. 

Another player looking to prove himself at Arsenal is Henri Lansbury, who is on loan at Watford at the moment. He is hoping to work hard next season and prove himself at Arsenal, which he hopes will lead to a chance in the first team.

With Bartley, Wilshere, Nordtveit, JET, Szczesny and Lansbury all out on loan and hoping to make the first team squad next season, things look like they could get very competitive on the training ground.

There's a lot of hope for all of those players, and besides them, we have quite a few others out on loan who would hope to make an impression too.

I'll be hoping to tune in to LadyArse's live blog today to keep up with the Champions league while I'm in work. She has being running the live blog for the last few Arsenal games and it seems to be a great way to interact during an Arsenal match.

That's it for today, but I might be back later in the day with an update on the Champions league draw. I will preview the West Ham game tomorrow as usual and I'll try to have it up and running nice and early.

Here's a clip of some Arsenal action.

See You Tomorrow.