Arsenal seek rewards of seeding
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Your support makes all the difference.Arsenal are insisting that despite the absence of no fewer than five centre-halves from consideration for tonight's Champions' League game at home to Sparta Prague, there must be no half measures.
Arsenal are insisting that despite the absence of no fewer than five centre-halves from consideration for tonight's Champions' League game at home to Sparta Prague, there must be no half measures.
Although the north London side have already qualified for the second stage - for the first time in three attempts - the advantages inherent in going through as group winners mean they will press for the victory that will guarantee it. The winners are effectively seeded and cannot be drawn with more than one other club who have finished on top of their section.
Arsÿne Wenger has already announced that Oleg Luzhny and Nelson Vivas will be his central defenders this evening. If they sound like an odd couple, he has no other realistic option. Martin Keown and Gilles Grimandi are suspended, Keown after three yellow cards in successive Champions' League matches and Grimandi for giving Lazio's Diego Simeone a cut eye in an off the ball in Rome last week; Tony Adams is injured, Matthew Upson is not yet match-fit and the Latvian Igor Stepanovs is not eligible until the second stage, having played for Skonto Riga in an earlier round. Stepanovs has been pencilled in for a debut in the Worthington Cup against Ipswich a week today.
Meanwhile, Luzhny, who has played in three of the four previous European matches, and Vivas, who has only two brief substitutes' appearances to his name this season, must hold the fort against Sparta, who were considered unlucky to lose their home match against Arsenal 1-0 to a fine individual goal by Silvinho.
Since then they have lost away to Lazio (0-3) and Shakhtar Donetsk (1-2) but beaten Shakhtar (3-2) in Prague and are desperate to finish above the Ukrainians to claim a place in the Uefa Cup.
After a physically demanding game against West Ham on Saturday, Wenger may opt, where he can, to use some of the players who had only bit parts at Upton Park, which would mean starting with Lee Dixon, Ray Parlour, Thierry Henry and Nwankwo Kanu. Dennis Bergkamp, who played for 87 minutes, is therefore more likely to be in the dug-out, but Wenger is relaxed about the Dutch striker's unusually forthright criticisms on Monday that the club is dragging its heels over a new contract for him. "We're very close to signing and it will be done in the next two to three weeks," Wenger said.
Arsenal (4-4-2, probable): Seaman; Dixon, Luzhny, Vivas, Silvinho; Ljungberg (or Lauren), Parlour, Vieira, Pires; Henry, Kanu.
Sparta Prague (1-3-4-2, probable): Postulka; J Novotny; Mynar, Bolf, Hornak; Sionko, Rosicky, Jarosik, Papousek; Obajdin, Kincl.
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