12 mins: Catamo takes on Hincapie, gets to the byline, runs the ball out of play and then goes down clutching a shin and rolling around. Hincapie did make contact with his ankle, but not where Catamo is clutching, and about two paces before he went down. That is, to be frank, embarrassing.

10 mins: Two goals already in Munich, where Bayern have just equalised to make it 1-1 on the night, and 3-2 on aggregate.

7 mins: An early corner for Arsenal, but Rice’s delivery clears everyone and bounces out of play.

6 mins: Arsenal have had 82% of the early possession. Now they get into Sporting’s penalty area for the first time, great work from Eze to keep the ball and find Madueke, but that’s as good as it gets.

4 mins: Now Suarez goes down, also thinking he was fouled, and again the referee waves play on. Promising first few minutes from the man in black. “This might be me trying to deal with my stress as an Arsenal fan, but I’m feeling pollyannaish about this match,” writes Kári Tulinius. “If the gunners win, they’ll have some much needed self-belief for the league run-in. If they lose it could be the kind of rock-bottom that teams use to kick against and get momentum back. The problem with the latter is that one person’s rock bottom is another’s rung on a ladder into the depths.”

2 mins: Very high-tempo start. Eze passes to Gyokeres, who plays a first-time return but Eze has run into a defender and fallen over. He thinks he was fouled, but the referee disagrees.

1 min: Peeeeeep! Luis Suarez gets the ball rolling.

The captains exchange pennants. Sporting’s looks rubbish. Not even embroidered. It’s like they forgot their proper pennant and had to buy one from a dodgy bloke outside the ground. It’s less a pennant than an insult.

The players are on the pitch! They have departed the tunnel!

“Aren’t we all loving the latest in the ‘Carry On’ series, Carry On Arsenal,” writes Jeremy Boyce, who’s clearly got his finger on the cultural pulse. Zeitgeist, consider yourself nailed. “Honestly, you really couldn’t make it up, except they manage to do so and put out a new edition every year. As a neutral it’s totally titterworthy watching them blow everything they’re going for, Frankie Howard would be proud of them. Arteta is perfect for the James Robertson Justice role, always believing they’re going in the right direction. Rice is Sid James, streetwise and smoking crafty fag wondering how it’s all gone so wrong. Kenneth Williams? Charles Hawtree? Dowman is clearly the outlier Jim Dale figure, entertaining, slight, light, peripheral but influential. Their problem is the Hattie Jacques weight of expectation that may ultimately be a burden too heavy to bear. She was a great performer, are they?”

Mikel Arteta has an extremely unrevealing chat with TNT Sport. “We know the opportunity that we have, so we’re very excited for the game,” he says. “We need to be more efficient than we were [on Saturday],” he adds. On his squad’s fitness issues, he says: “To be fair, all the boys are desperate to play.”

It’s a curious thing, this training top: in photos those vertical stripes are very bright, on the TV (mine, at least) they’re very subtle. I haven’t seen one in the flesh to know the truth of it.

An email! “Barry Glendenning is absolutely right - Arteta’s anxiety and stress has rubbed off on his players and that is why they are losing,” writes Jeff Sax. “He lacks the composure and confidence that Pep for example has.” I think there’s some truth to this, but I’m also just not completely convinced by this squad. I mean, it’s really good. But it’s not great, and the real issue is that when the players look around the dressing room, that’s also what they think. They look like they don’t truly believe they can win the league, and perhaps the only thing that can convince them they’re a title-winning squad is actually winning the title.

Asked yesterday whether either Bukayo Saka or Jurrien Timber might play tonight, Mikel Arteta said: “Maybe one of them, let’s see.” Well we have seen, and the answer is neither of them, and also no Martin Odegaard or Riccardo Calafiori. But Declan Rice, who missed training yesterday, is in.