🕟 Kick Off: 20:00 GMT

🏟️ Venue: Fortuna Arena

📺 UK Broadcaster: TNT Sports

🙎🏻‍♂️ Referee: Tobias Stieler 🇩🇪

📹 VAR: Soren Storks 🇩🇪

🔴 Arsenal Team News:

• William Saliba (back): Returned to training and played 45 minutes in a behind closed doors match last week. Has travelled with the squad and may make the matchday lineup.
• Bukayo Saka: Likely to be out until at least after the international break following and injury he sustained against Bayern Munich a fortnight ago.

⚽ Arsenal Form: 🟩🟧🟩🟧🟩

⭐ Slavia Prague Team News:

• Tomas Chory: Hasn’t played since being sent off for making an offensive gesture to the referee last month. He is out of contract at the end of the season and is unlikely to play for the club again.
• Lukas Provod: Missed the last two games and is doubtful for tomorrow.
• Jakub Markovic: Faces a late fitness test due to a muscular injury. Nazar Domchak is likely to remain in goal.
• Ange N’Guessan: Came off with an injury at the weekend, unlikely to feature tomorrow.
• Ivan Scrahnz and Samuel Isife: Both have been dealing with an ilness with the former being more likely to be available tomorrow.
• Igoh Ogbu (achilles): Long term absentee following an injury he picked up playing for Nigeria in the summer.

⚽ Slavia Prague Form: 🟩🟩🟧🟧🟧

⚔️ Head-to-Head:

• Slavia Prague 0–3 Arsenal (Nov 4, 2025, UCL League Phase)
• Slavia Prague 0–4 Arsenal (Apr 15, 2021, Europa League Quarter-final 2nd Leg)
• Arsenal 1–1 Slavia Prague (Apr 8, 2021, Europa League Quarter-final 1st Leg)
• Slavia Prague 0–0 Arsenal (Nov 7, 2007, UCL Group Stage)
• Arsenal 7–0 Slavia Prague (Oct 23, 2007, UCL Group Stage)

📖 Match Facts:

• It will be exactly one year to the day that we last played Slavia Prague when we face them tomorrow.
• Arsenal have never conceded an away goal to Slavia Prague.
• Arsenal have never lost to a Czech opponent in UEFA history with 11 games and 8 wins.
• Since debuting in the UCL in 2007 and winning their first game, Slavia Prague have not won a game. They are currently on a streak of 22 games in the UCL without a win.

📸 Previously in this fixture…

Going back exactly 365 days will take you to our last visit to Prague in a game which saw Merino score a brace and Saka slot home a penalty to give us the three points on our way to an unbeaten run in the competition.

✍🏼 Pre-Match Ramblings

After breaking the Anfield curse at the weekend Arsenal head to Czechia to face a team that we faced as recently as last season in the Champions League. The Czech side haven’t won a game in the Champions League since 2007, and I don’t expect that to change tomorrow. Having said that, we did recently lose to a League 2 relegation contender in a cup competition, so who knows?

The big talking point of the day has been the return of Saliba to training, and him travelling with the squad. I think we all expected him to be out far longer than this, so his return is truly a surprise. It does leave a big question though, because Konsa has been so good recently and has formed an incredible partnership with Gabriel. For me, Saliba isn’t getting back into our Premier League starting 11 without a serious drop of form by Konsa, or some severe fixture congestion. Anywhere else on the pitch I think rotation is a pretty straight forward thing to do, but our defensive system relies on total synergy between the back five, the goalkeeper, and the midfielders, and changing who was become a stalwart in that group just for the sake of it seems like a mistake. Saliba is obviously still one of the best in the world in his position, but I think Konsa has been up there this season.

In other areas of the pitch I expect to see more rotation. Max Dowman will almost certainly start, making him our youngest ever starter in the competition. We are quite thin on options on the right with Saka’s absence so rotation there would be nice. Perhaps Rice will get a break from the starting lineup after his mammoth display against Liverpool; Zubimendi will certainly be asking for a start. Gyokeres desperately needs some goals after his first goal ended up being meaningless. The conversations about him aren’t going away, and I don’t expect they will unless he turns into a worldbeater in the coming months. Havertz is simply too important to how we play to be dropped in the big games.