Hello and how are you? Wednesday the 10th of December sees the Mighty Cannon take a trip to Bruges, Belgium as Arsenal play against Club Brugge KV at the Jan Breydl stadium (capacity of 29,042) in the next of our Champions League games. KO off is at 21.00pm Central European time (8.00pm UK time) and expected weather is cloudy with 10° C (feels like 6°) and 0-1% chance of rain.
Well after the last second loss to Aston Villa I’m sure we are all hoping for a convincing victory against Club Brugge to cheer us up. A victory would all but confirm us in the last 16 and we have already have made it to the play-off phase if all should go acki-kacki.
in our remaining three games.
134 yr old Royal Brugge have been struggling domestically in the Jupiler Pro League (down to third place W10 D2 L2 F24 A17 and have only won one in the last four) and in the CL, although their only point in the CL was a respectable one grabbed from Barca in a 3-3 draw. The Blauw-zwarts lie in 26th and are W1 D1 L3 F8 A13.
As I mentioned in the forum, Club Brugge have let go of Nicky Hayen (manager since March 2024) and replaced him with Croatian Ivan Leko, poached from Gent, who seemed to be themselves shocked by the change. ” oi! who said you could do that?”
Cristhian Mosquera (ankle) and Gabriel Magalhaes (thigh) are both out, young Willie Saliba (knock) remains a doubt (dang!) and Riccardo Calafiori was limping at the end at Villa Park, so who knows? Mr Rice and Mr Merino must tread a delicate path as if either see yellow they will miss the match against Inter.
Sitting this one out for FCB are goalkeepers Simon Mignolet (overstretching) and Nordin Jackers (rib fracture) both players missed the weekend’s defeat against St Truiden.
Bruges centre-back Zaid Romero (back), midfield men Lynnt Audoor (muscle) and Ludovit Reis (shoulder) and striker Romeo Vermant (concussion) will also miss this clash.
Our euro-friendly chums at Statto HQ have give the Arsenal a 71.4% chance of winning, and Club Brugge a mere 11.1%. Next up for the Gunners, a home tie against Wolves in a late Saturday KO. So COYG!
Mills
It doesn’t take much to dent the confidence of our fanbase, one defeat after 18 unbeaten games and apparently City will run away with the league? Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.
I have to believe our bad run with injuries will come to an end, logic tells us that we won’t continue to to have the most injuries in the division, the law of averages must kick in. We will have 4 or 5 “like a new player” back for the second half , that has to put us in an even stronger position than we already are.
And by the way, City are not the City of 3 or 4 years ago. Keep the faith. CARMON ARSENAL, as Frank used to say.
Pedantic George