No Fear: How Arsenal can beat PSG in Champions League blockbuster 

It's been 16 long years since Arsenal last reached the Champions League semi-finals: Saul Lipetz says let's embrace PSG challenge 

Sixteen years.

That’s how long it’s been since we were so unceremoniously dumped out of the Champions League by Manchester United, the last time we were in the last four of this competition.

This, and the unique cachet attached to this, surely our biggest game since then, goes some way to explaining our recent often rather insipid, disjointed performances in the league.

So, I think it is correct to say we should not read too much into these displays; different competitions have their own internal logic, quite apart from the acknowledged fact that we have often done better against teams that come out to play – although Palace, unlike Brentford, did attack us and most would agree were good value for their point.

Equally, despite David Raya’s uncharacteristically shaky keeping, and William Saliba’s second brain fade in a week, we should see this more as a warning against complacency than any cause for panic.

This aside, we have a number of potential selection and formation issues to face. The one blot on an otherwise glorious night at the Bernabéu – if we don’t count the silly-billy concession – was the needless yellow picked up by Thomas Partey at the end, so instrumental at the base of the midfield.

I confess I am not a fan of the Declan Rice-Mikel Merino axis when the Ghanaian is unavailable, but I accept that it is the obvious default, and the Palace game would have been the perfect dress rehearsal to try it out again, but for the question marks over Mikel Merino’s fitness (as well as Ben White’s).

We really will have to improvise if Merino doesn’t make it, just at the point when it seemed clear that for all the Spaniard’s creditable efforts at centre-forward, Leo Trossard had made the position his own in a welcome return to form. Surely it’s too much of a stretch to expect Myles Lewis-Skelly to shift into midfield? The level of rejigging would be such that we have to hope Mikel is fit.

I watched our early-season game against PSG on a tablet in a restaurant in Lecce, in the heel of Italy, when we cruised to a comfortable, untroubled 2-0 win.

Of course, our opponents have been transformed since the new year, and are many observers’ smart money to win the whole thing; but their second leg at Villa offered plentiful evidence that they have their own vulnerabilities, and concerns over the form of their star man Ousmane Dembélé.

A fascinating, almost alarming statistic is that Arsenal hold the record for most games played in the Champions League by any club without lifting the big-eared trophy, at (I make it) 213 matches.

Crystal Palace on Wednesday was a timely reminder of what we must beware – no question, we need to get back to where we were defensively and eradicate those vulnerabilities.

But it should in no way be a cause for fear. There is so much to gain.

This opportunity hasn’t come round for the number of years referenced at the top, and we must – and will – go into it with Mersonian unbelievable belief.

There is no other way.