Fit-again Gael Clichy will travel to the Ukraine for Wednesday night’s game but Nasri is very doubtful.
The left back has an additional motivation now, having made his senior debut for France last week in a 2-1 win against Serbia in Paris. Shine for Arsenal, then play for France.
Interestingly, Yuri Semin, the Dynamo coach, was at Ewood Park to see Arsenal thrash Blackburn 4-0 in a game where Blackburn had early chances. Semin might have been amazed by the speed of Arsenal’s passing, or Blackburn’s inept defending, or both.
His assistant coach is Oleg Luzhny, who played 75 games for Arsenal between 1999 and 2003. Before that Luzhny had a decade at Kiev and was captain of the club and the national team. Kiev won the USSR title in 1999, before independence. They thrashed Barcelona 7-0 on aggregate in 1987-98 and beat holders Real Madrid in 1999 before losing unluckily to Bayern Munich. I seem to remember a very wet night and a 40-yard free-kick by Effenberg that Shovkovsky should have saved.
When Kiev played Moscow Spartak in the Third Qualifying Round, they won 8-2 on aggregate.
That game will always have a political dimension which games against English clubs will never have. Kiev will be fired up against Arsenal tomorrow, but not to that extent. This is not a now-or-never game, or a revenge game, only a group game. The Ukraine was repressed for 70 years by Russian communists, who crushed their language, music and traditions.
Kiev is a city I’d love to visit. A thousand years ago, when Moscow was a village, there were three great cities in Europe – Rome, Constantinople and Kiev. I last wrote about Kiev in A classic book for thoughtful football fans.
It will be interesting to see what Dynamo Kiev are like these days.
Hatim Ben Arfa has replaced Samir Nasri at Marseilles but hasn’t had time to produce his best form yet. He’s a kid with potential but I don’t see him being a huge threat to Liverpool tonight.
Their Belgian coach Eric Gerets was thrilled with a 1-0 win at Anfield last season but Liverpool scraped through the group in the end.
Marseilles v Liverpool is on ITV1 and Chelsea v Bordeaux is on ITV 4. A big one for Scolari : his first Champions League game. Bordeaux are coached by 42-year old Laurent Blanc and have four Brazilian players that Scolari knows well. Lampard is on form.
The other games are on Sky and I’m expecting Inter Milan to beat Panathinaikos in Athens. Jose Mourinho will want to play English clubs later on.
PSV Eindhoven play Atletico Madrid, who could be the dark horses.
I’ve heard that Dubai are so sick of Hicks and Gillett that they intend to buy Liverpool for less than they originally offered. The Yanks have turned down £500 million. Dubai originally wanted Arsenal.
Last night Aston Villa won at White Hart Lane for the first time in nine years and went fourth in the Premier League table. In this game last season Villa led 4-1 but drew 4-4 but this time they won 2-1.
Spurs spent £69 million this summer. Gareth Bale and Roman Pavlyuchenko are superb players but the Russian and two Croatians will take time to settle in. Spurs are bottom of the table and miss the goalscoring gifts of Berbatov and Keane.
Aston Villa are better than the more artistic Manchester City and could push into the Big Four this season.
Solid, very tenacious tackling, with pace up front; Ashley Young is a chance-machine, always creating; their work ethic is tremendous and everybody tackles, all through the game. Brad Friedel is so reliable between the sticks. Efficient formula, good manager, smart owner, will finish above Everton and Man City, I reckon