Arsenal will face PSV looking to confirm their place in the last eight of the UEFA Champions League having won the first leg 7-1 in Eindhoven. Barring a European miracle, or nightmare from the Gunners' point of view, Mikel Arteta should oversee the most pre-approved saunter into the quarter-final.
However, this will indeed be the last time that the Gunners will play the second leg of this season's competition at their own ground. After the draw was made to decide who the Gunners' last-16 opponents would be, the bracket leading to the final was also decided.
Arsenal will play both the quarter-final and semi-final, should they make it, at home in the first leg. This is, without doubt, the worst outcome for the club who were knocked out last season in the second leg away to Bayern Munich.
Playing at home in the second leg provides such a boost. Arsenal eliminated Porto via a penalty shootout at the Emirates Stadium last season having been able to score through Leandro Trossard despite trailing from the first leg in Portugal.
football.london spoke to Martin Keown, who was in attendance for the draw for the knockout rounds of the competition with the Arsenal delegation. He explained how he had spoken to the mind behind the restructure of the tournament and raised this very concern.
"When this draw was done, they sort of... I did argue with the guy who put the rules together," said Keown who works as a pundit for TNT Sports. "There needs to be some benefit of getting out of the blocks early and finishing in the top eight or your league position.
"I like the fact that you play second. The last 16, the teams that didn't play in the 32, they played the home game last. There's a lot in that.
"Atletico Madrid have got that against Real Madrid. That could be quite telling. I don't think the competition organisers realise the full impact that has. In fact, they did say to me that Dortmund would probably want to play their [home] leg first. Well, that's okay then.
"But I think that the league position, one of the mistakes I'd like to offer up is they should have allowed that where you finished in the league gives you the right to play the last game at home throughout the tournament. To just draw that out of a hat in the last draw and give that away, it was a very cheap thing to do, really.
"It takes it away from what is a Champions League competition, after all, and we should be reverting back to the league right the way through the competition."
It is a fair point raised by Keown and despite the effort and victories to finish third in the table, beyond the avoidance of a play-off round and the last-16 tie being played at home in the second leg, there are few benefits.
Speaking of benefits, Keown put forward the argument that despite the chance to play Atletico Madrid, the Gunners might instead prefer to face-off against Los Blancos. Asked about the freedom Arsenal played with against PSV, the former central defender suggested that it had more to do with how the Dutch side played rather than a psychological release from the pressures of the Premier League.
"It may have looked like that but I think it was more a case of the fact that the opponent... They just knocked out Juventus out of the Champions League," Keown said.
"It was an opponent that went toe-to-toe with them and came on second best. They didn't sit on the edge of their box. They were 3-0 down after 31 minutes because they opened the game up.
"That's probably not a wise thing to do against Arsenal. In the Champions League, if they're going to progress, Real Madrid might be seen as the most difficult opponent. Maybe there is the one that Arsenal unpick because their ego is such that they'll go and try and beat Arsenal.
"They won't be trying to sit there on the edge of their own box. But you still have to have people who can put the ball in the back of the net. The sooner Arsenal can get some of these guys back, the better."
Watch Arsenal in the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League, live on TNT Sports and discovery+
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UEFA Champions League
Watch Arsenal vs PSV on TNT Sports
Arsenal face PSV Eindhoven in the- second leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie on March 12.
The game will be broadcast live on TNT Sports, which costs £30.99 on a rolling monthly basis via Discovery+ Premium and also includes the Europa League and Conference League.
£30.99 TNT Sports/Discovery+