Matchday Eve News Round-Up

First up, lets’ round out the UEFA Champions’ League full draw following the news Arsenal will be facing Milan:

AC Milan v Arsenal
Basel v Bayern Munich
Bayer Leverkusen v Barcelona
CSKA Moscow v Real Madrid
Napoli v Chelsea
Olympique Lyon v APOEL Nicosia (Cypriots Rising?!)
Olympique Marseille v Inter-Milan
Zenit-Saint Petersburg v Benfica

That’s an interesting full draw for sure and it looks yet again to be FC Barcelona’s tournament to lose, though they have shown some slight cracks in the armor in La Liga recently.

As for Arsenal, a tie with Milan looks to be daunting but Arsenal has had some success in Italy over the years including the 2-0 win in the San Siro against Milan in 2008 and of course the legendary 5-1 annihilation of Inter in the same stadium in 2003.  The Gunners will begin the tie with the first leg in the very same San Siro Stadium on February 15th.

Speaking of February, it is the month that was recently set as Jack Wilshere’s injury return date.  The youngster picked up an ankle injury in pre-season that required surgery.  However, according to Arsenal, Jack had a scan this past week that went in Wenger’s words, “very, very good.  Exceptionally good.”  So, hopefully Jack can return then and continue on his remarkable progression into arguably England’s best young midfielder.

In other injury news, Kieran Gibbs, is set to return next week against Aston Villa but will miss tomorrow’s match with Man €ity.  Arsenal’s full injury list going into tomorrow’s match: Abou Diaby, Kieran Gibbs, Lukasz Fabianski, Vito Mannone, Bacary Sagna, Andre Santos and Jack Wilshere.