Sporting CP vs Arsenal: 4 key battles in crucial Champions League tie

At the halfway stage of the Champions League's inaugural league phase, Sporting CP and Arsenal have had rather different European campaigns.

Only Liverpool sit above the Lisbon giants, who have racked up ten points from four games. A bastion of swash and buckle, Sporting's last continental outing was a 4-1 rout at home to Manchester City. Arsenal have only scored three goals across the entire league phase thus far.

The Gunners, in fairness, have only conceded once - Hakan Calhanoglu's penalty for Inter - and still have qualification for the knockout stages in their hands. However, if Mikel Arteta's side hope to avoid a draining two-legged play-off, they may need to inflict Sporting's first defeat of the season when they travel to Lisbon on Tuesday.

Ruben Amorim may have left the Portuguese champions to feud with Ed Sheeran in Suffolk, but Sporting still pose an almighty threat to an Arsenal side only tentatively rediscovering their best form.

Viktor Gyokeres vs Gabriel & Saliba

Sporting's remorseless talisman Viktor Gyokeres has shown no respect for any competition or opposition this season, indiscriminately racking up an endless tally of goals. The royally in-form 26-year-old boasts 33 in 25 games for club and country, including a trio against Manchester City last time out in the Champions League.

Arsenal's formidable pairing of William Saliba and Gabriel have a set formula when faced with a hulking forward. The front-foot Brazilian usually engages first, getting a good whiff of the opponent's cologne while the deceptively swift Saliba sweeps up behind.

The shutout against Nottingham Forest on Saturday afternoon was Arsenal's first Premier League clean sheet since September. However, they have been far more parsimonious in European competition - which, in truth, is a consequence of luck and judgement. Gyokeres will emphatically test Arsenal's continental resolve this week.

Martin Odegaard vs Hidemasa Morita

"It's not a coincidence, the team flows in a different way when he is playing," Arteta gushed when recently reflecting on the impact of his captain, Martin Odegaard. "When he's in the team, you can sense something that is different. It's difficult to put a finger on it, but it's different." Different, and much better.

A sprained ankle has limited Arsenal's skipper to just a handful of seconds throughout the course of this Champions League campaign - which goes a long way to explaining why the Gunners have scored fewer goals than Sparta Prague and Dinamo Zagreb.

Odegaard will undoubtedly line up at the Jose Alvalade on Tuesday night. The Norway captain missed Arsenal's trip to Lisbon when these sides were paired together in the Europa League knockout stages 18 months ago, watching a messy 2-2 draw from the sidelines. Hidemasa Morita scored a luckless own goal that day, but will be more concerned with stopping Odegaard from finding the net this week.

Bukayo Saka vs Maximiliano Araujo

Maximiliano Araujo has one speed: flat out. The snapping left wing-back was draped over the back of Manchester City's Savinho like a green and white scarf for the majority of the recent European clash, snuffing out the Brazilian's considerable threat.

At the other end of the pitch, Araujo underscored his own threat with Sporting's second goal of the game, crisply slotting the ball beyond Ederson at the end of a slick passing sequence. The Uruguay international won't be able to dovetail with the injured Pedro Goncalves - who memorably lobbed Aaron Ramsdale from the halfway line when Sporting went to the Emirates in March 2023 - so may be more focused on his defensive duties.

Bukayo Saka can be trusted to keep Araujo busy. Arsenal's durable difference-maker will, as ever, be integral to any attacking threat the visitors muster. The England international's set-piece deliveries will also have to be at their best against a side which hasn't conceded a single goal from a dead-ball situation this season.

Battle of the systems

Amorim may be gone but Sporting will continue to adhere to the same principles and will likely line up with the same 3-4-3 shape. Joao Pereira has applied a soft touch since taking over, as Francisco Trincao pointed out: "Even their schedules are the same." This means that Arsenal will have to find a way around the issues which plagued Manchester City and exist in any matchup between a back-three and back-four.

Any system with wing-backs inherently boasts more width than a team with only four defenders - if Sporting's adventurous wide players push forward as they usually do, they will form a line of five attackers. This leaves Arsenal's back-four outnumbered.

What the instinctively wary Arteta tends to do against this type of system is make one of his wingers follow their wing-back into the back line to counteract the overload. Gabriel Martinelli and Saka rarely shirk their defensive duties, but this reactive approach could stymy Arsenal's attacking thrust.

As he continues to slide down the Jose Mourinho arc, Arteta may very well be content with first preserving a clean sheet before worrying about scoring. In a European tie away to one of most in-form teams in European football, could you blame him?

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