Arsenal's unbeaten run meets Slavia's record winless streak in Prague
Arsenal arrive at Fortuna Arena on an 18-game Champions League unbeaten run, with William Saliba back in the squad, as Slavia Prague look to avoid matching the competition's longest winless streak.
Arsenal travel to Fortuna Arena on Wednesday chasing a result that would stretch their Champions League unbeaten run to 19 games, while Slavia Prague face the prospect of equalling the longest winless streak in the competition's history.
Mikel Arteta's side have not lost in their last 18 Champions League matches, not counting penalty shootouts, a run built on 13 wins and five draws, according to Opta data reported by The Analyst. The only blemish in that stretch came on penalties against Paris Saint-Germain in last season's final, after a 1-1 draw through extra time.
That resilience was underlined again on Sunday, when Kai Havertz's first-half goal gave Arsenal a 1-0 win at Anfield, their first league victory there in 14 years, and lifted them to the top of the Premier League. Attention now shifts back to Europe after a 2-2 draw at Bayern Munich in their previous Champions League outing.
Raya's clean-sheet rate sets the defensive benchmark
Eleven clean sheets and only nine goals conceded across the 18-game run tell their own story, and David Raya sits at the centre of it. In 39 Champions League starts, the goalkeeper has shut out opponents 21 times, a 54% rate that stands as the best among any goalkeeper with 25 or more appearances in the competition's history, per Opta figures cited by The Analyst.
Martin Ødegaard's influence shows up in a different kind of number. The Arsenal captain leads this season's Champions League for defensive line-breaking passes, with 11, for line-breaking passes delivered into the final third, with 45, and for line-breaking passes that have led directly to a goal, with four. Those figures describe a player repeatedly finding the pass that takes the ball past an opposition line and into dangerous territory, the kind of progression that turns a settled possession into a transition in Arsenal's favour.
Eberechi Eze has supplied some of the end product from that progression. He scored in consecutive Champions League games against Lille and Bayern Munich after a quieter Premier League spell, and a goal here would make him only the second Englishman to score in three straight European Cup or Champions League matches for Arsenal, after Ray Kennedy's four-game run in 1971-72.
Slavia's record is against them, but Ayaosi offers a route out
Slavia have not won a single Champions League fixture since their first victory in the competition back in 2007, a run now standing at 22 matches without a win, eight draws and 14 defeats, according to The Analyst. A failure to win on Wednesday would take that streak to 23 games, matching the shared record held by AEK Athens between 1989 and 2006 and FCSB between 2006 and 2013. The Opta supercomputer gave the hosts little chance in its pre-match simulations, with Arsenal winning 69% of them.
If Slavia are to disrupt that pattern, their best route may run through Emmanuel Ayaosi. He has attempted more dribbles than any teammate this Champions League season, with 10, won the most duels, with 18, and registered the most touches in the opposition box, with 21. Those numbers point to a player capable of carrying the ball through midfield and forcing transitions that a side expected to sit in a low block for long periods will otherwise rarely create for itself.
Slavia's last outing, a 2-2 draw at Fenerbahçe, offered a glimpse of that route working. Ayaosi laid on Pavel Kacor's late leveller, while captain Lukás Provod ended a personal drought stretching back to February 2021, across 29 games and 47 shots, by scoring his first goal in major European competition since then.
Trpisovsky fielded a side against Fenerbahçe averaging just 24 years and five days old, the youngest line-up Slavia have used in a Champions League match, and the second-youngest by any club across the competition's opening three rounds, behind only Shakhtar Donetsk's team against PSV.
Saliba's return adds to Arteta's selection options
Arsenal will again be without Bukayo Saka and William Saliba's long-term absence appeared set to continue, but the defender travelled with the squad to Prague after playing 45 minutes in a behind-closed-doors match last week, Guardian Football reported. Arteta said he has no doubts that the France international, who has been out since sustaining a back injury at the World Cup, is ready to feature again, though it remains unclear whether he will be risked in the Czech capital after such a lengthy layoff.
Doubts over Madueke, Calafiori, Tzolis and Rice eased after each played through the Liverpool fixture without setback, leaving Arteta with a fuller squad to choose from than the absences of Saka and, potentially, Saliba might otherwise suggest.
Arsenal's task is to keep extending a run built on defensive solidity and progressive passing through midfield; Slavia's is to find enough from moments like Ayaosi's carries to avoid a piece of unwanted history.