Having already secured top spot, we round off our Champions League group stage campaign with a trip to a red-hot PSV Eindhoven for the second consecutive season.
The Dutch side, who have been victorious all 15 of their league games this season, have also secured a place alongside us in the knockout stages, bouncing back from their 4-0 defeat at Emirates Stadium on matchday one which has been their solitary loss in all competitions this term.
With the pressure off for both teams, only bragging rights will be at stake as we aim to avenge last season’s 2-0 Europa League defeat at the Philips Stadion, and also win five group stage matches for the first time since we reached the final in 2005/06.
Peerless PSV
Peter Bosz's team have been immaculate this term in the Eredivisie, and are already 10 points clear at the top of the league having won 15 out of 15, scoring an incredible 52 goals along the way.
They hit the summit in September five matches in and have just kept going, recording a 5-2 success over Ajax in October when Hirving Lozano netted a hat-trick, and edging past nearest rivals Feyenoord 2-1 earlier this month to increase their stranglehold on the division.
In the Champions League, two points from their opening three games left their hopes in the balance, but successive wins over Lens and Sevilla, including recovering from two goals down to beat the Spanish side away from home, have seen them secure qualification with a game to spare. Those two victories were more than they had achieved in the competition in their previous 22 matches.
Find out much more about PSV, including their history, stadium and star players
What the managers say
Bosz: "We are not going to field a completely different team against Arsenal, but you have to allow boys who do well from the bench to play. Tomorrow is the opportunity for that."
“I know that we are better than [the game in September], but what matters to me is whether we have learned from that match. Ultimately, the stadium will be full again and we want to make our supporters proud. That is perhaps the most important point.”
Arteta: "It's really impressive how [PSV] play, the consistency, the way they are winning football matches. They’ve been extremely dominant, not only this season but last season as well and huge credit to the manager, the coaching staff and players for what they’ve done.
"When you look at the record that they have here, it’s incredible so we’re going to have to be really good tomorrow to beat them." - read every word from Mikel’s pre-match press conference
Team news
With qualification assured for both teams, it has been suggested that Arteta and Bosz will opt to rotate their players for this game. What is for certain though is that we will once again be without Takehiro Tomiyasu, Thomas Partey, Emile Smith Rowe, Fabio Vieira and Jurrien Timber through injury.
Mexican winger Lozano is missing through suspension after picking up three bookings during the group stage, while young striker Noa Lang, Armel Bella-Kotchap and Jordan Teze missed their last league encounter at Heerenveen on Thursday, with the latter most likely to be fit enough if his manager deems it worthy enough to play him in this dead rubber.
Talking tactics
Adrian Clarke: Bosz does not spend a great deal of time focusing on negating his opponents’ strengths. Instead he wants his team to play a brand of fearless, attacking football. PSV will always start in either a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1, with a heavy emphasis on raiding down the flanks at pace because they boast an array of exciting wide men. Highly rated Belgian Johan Bakayoko is a regular starter on the right wing, with Malik Tillman and Yorbe Vertessen options on the other flank if Lozano and Lang are out.
Only two of the 32 group stage clubs have produced more pressed sequences than the Dutch outfit, which shows they like to win the ball back quickly inside the opposition half. They failed to show it in a poor display against us at Emirates Stadium, but Bosz’s side are usually good at disrupting play with their closing down. They prefer his way of defending to keeping a low block.
Joey Veerman is a quality central midfielder who can deliver terrific set pieces, but it is veteran striker Luuk de Jong [above] who will concern us most. He wins a lot of aerial duels and has scored 12 goals so far this season, as well as supplying six assists.
With both sides already through to the last 16, I expect this to be a free-flowing contest that features plenty of skilful attacking football. We should see goals.
Facts and stats
We are winless in our last three major European visits to the Netherlands since a 2-1 win at Ajax in September 2005 in the Champions League.
PSV are unbeaten on home soil in the Champions League this season, last going a full group stage undefeated at home in 2015/16 under Phillip Cocu, when they won all three games.
PSV have won their last two Champions League matches, as many as they had in their previous 22 (D9 L11). They last won three in a row in the 2006/07 group stages, in a campaign they would eventually reach the quarter-final after eliminating us.
We have scored in each of our last 22 Champions League group stage matches, since a 2-0 loss against Borussia Dortmund in September 2014.
No side has netted more Champions League goals than us this season, while only twice have we scored more in a single group stage than their 15 this term (18 in both 2010/11 and 2016/17).
Noa Lang has been involved in 13 shots following a ball carry in the Champions League this season (9 shots, 4 chances created), second only to Rodrygo (15).
Luuk de Jong has scored in each of his last six home European matches for PSV (six goals), the longest home scoring run by a PSV player in their major European history.
With three goals and four assists, Bukayo Saka has been involved in more Champions League goals than any other player this season. His seven goal involvements is also already the most by an Arsenal player in their debut campaign in the competition.
Gabriel Jesus has scored in all four of his Champions League games for us, and could become the first Gunner ever to score five in a row in the competition.
Match officials
It is the second time this year that German referee Tobias Stieler will oversee one of our games, after he took charge of his first Gunners game in March when we drew 2-2 in Portugal against Sporting Lisbon.
The lawyer, who has been a Bundesliga official since 2012 and was added to the FIFA list two years later, has had two Champions League appointments this season which have seen him dish out an astonishing 20 yellow cards - eight in Sevilla’s 1-1 draw against Lens, and 12 as Feyenoord beat Lazio 3-1.
Referee: Tobias Stieler (GER)
Assistant Referee 1: Christian Gittelmann (GER)
Assistant Referee 2: Mark Borsch (GER)
Fourth Official: Martin Petersen (GER)
VAR: Christian Dingert (GER)
Assistant VAR: Tiago Martins (POR)
Previous meetings
We have faced PSV in competitive action on nine occasions, with seven in the Champions League as well as last season’s two encounters in the Europa League. We have only lost two of those games, but those have come on each of our last two visits to the Philips Stadion.
The first was when were drawn against each other in 2006/07 in the round of 16. PSV won the first leg 1-0 at home, before securing a 1-1 draw at Emirates Stadium after Alex scored at both ends to eliminate us from the competition.
Last season, a Granit Xhaka strike saw us secure a 1-0 win at home, but we fell to a 2-0 loss a week later out in Eindhoven when Joey Veerman and de Jong netted, however we would still go on to win our group.
Back in September, we ran riot upon our return to the Champions League with Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus and Leandro Trossard all scoring before half-time, and Martin Odegaard added a fourth to make it a night to remember at Emirates Stadium.
How to watch
Log onto Arsenal.com and the official app an hour before kick-off for a comprehensive pre-match build-up on Breakdown Live!
Nick Bright and Jeremie Aliadiere will be in the studio looking back at the weekend's game against Aston Villa and the positives we can take going forward, while they'll also look back at a momentous weekend for our women's and under-18 sides.
They'll also take a look at our opponents and assess the game at the Philips Stadion, and then from 5.45pm UK time, live commentary comes from Max Jones and David Hillier as they take you through our final European match of 2023.
You can also find out which broadcasters are showing the game wherever you are in the world.
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