Hello and how are you? Tuesday the 20th of January sees the Mighty Cannon take a trip to Bella Italia and to Milano, to take on last year’s finalists, Inter Milan in the CL. KO at the San Siro is 9-00pm local time (8.00pm UK time). Expected weather partly cloudy, temps at 3° feels like 4°, with 0% chance of rain.

Within a single point of the heavy-weight rounds of the last 16, we go into this one top of the CL and with a perfect record. Inter were also Perfetto in their early games but notched up successive defeats to Liverpool (who extinguished an 18-match unbeaten run) and Atlético. Inter haven’t lost three in a row in the CL before, and with their level of pride I’m sure they will do everything they can to avoid it and the gruelling knock-out phase.

However, Inter bounced back and are five wins in eight, with a draw and one loss, with four clean sheets in the last six)leaving Chivu’s lads top of Serie A. So Arsenal are meeting Italy’s Arsenal?

Di Gennaro (hand) and Palacios (thigh), Calhanoglu (calf) and Dumfries (ankle) despite being key players are out for the Nerazzurri, but beware, Bastoni and Thuram will both be back and were rested for this clash at the weekend. We will also meet up with our old friend Mr. Mkhitaryan, whom I’m sure will take no prisoners despite being an ex-Gunner.

Merino, Norgaard and Mr Rice are all a card away from a suspension, so they will tread where angels fear to. Dowman (ankle), Hincapie (thigh) and Calafiori (muscle) are unavailable.

I reached out to Statto HQ who were engaged in an argument about the Riemann Hypothesis, and handed me a scrap of paper with the stats. Inter Milan have been given a 34.2% chance of winning and the Arsenal 37.5%. Next up farmyard frolics with Manure at the Emirates. So COYG!

Mills.

Well I suspect our friends at Statto HQ haven’t taken into account that we should be resting key players. And they need a rest because grafting is our top priority, none of this fancy Dan expansive entertaining football, that’s for the last century, apparently. Still whatever, I hope we win and my eyes stop bleeding.

Pedantic George.