SLAVIA PRAHA LEAGUE PREVIEW

It's Slavia Praha away this evening in the Champions League. Not an ideal destination to be heading to, but the relative weakness of the Czechia side in the Champions League does take the edge off the match-up, a slight bit… no win in 22 CL games.

Slavia meanwhile are on the brink of an unwanted piece of Champions League history. They've gone 22 matches in the competition without tasting victory, stretching back to their first-ever fixture back in 2007.

How can you be that bad in Champions League? The bulk of the pre-game chatter has been focused on the return of a true king of global football… William Saliba.

The big Frenchman took a leave of absence post-World Cup to fix his back. The worry was he'd have to have surgery.

The club opted to NOT do that, instead just going the good old-fashioned rest-up route. You cannot begin to imagine how tough that must have been for the player.

He's just won a Premier League, he's coming into his prime performance-wise, and he just had to sit there and wait for his body to heal, while watching Ezri come in and cover for him with ease. That's a lot of time on your own, a lot of time with your thoughts, probably a lot of not feeling particularly great.

No doubt Arsenal have done their best to keep him in with the group, but it's hard regardless. The thing I always failed to conceptualise about football is how intense the life is… you're with 40 people what feels like every waking hour.

It's especially prevalent in the Premier League. Three games a week from September through the end of January.

No real let-up over December. Then you get injured… and it's all quiet.