Julian Alvarez was Atletico Madrid’s best player in the first leg meeting between the sides last week, scoring from the penalty spot to level the contest from six shots overall - two of which managed to find the target. 

There aren’t many players that can muster this short of shot volume against a side as good at limiting chances as Arsenal are, showing how crucial Alvarez is to Diego Simeone’s side. 

He’s already made a bit of history by scoring more goals than any other Atletico Madrid player in a single Champions League campaign (10), which is two goals more than he’s scored in LaLiga.

Alvarez has taken 45 shots across his 14 starts in the Champions League this season (3.45 per 90), seeing 22 of these efforts find the target (1.69 per 90). He had three shots when these sides met earlier in the campaign and was unlucky to not find the target with one of his efforts coming back off the crossbar.

Viktor Gyokeres gave his best performance in an Arsenal shirt so far over the weekend with a brace against Fulham as Mikel Arteta’s side took a step closer to the title with a 3-0 win over the Cottagers at home. Gyokeres was bright away from the goals too, expertly dealing with Joachim Andersen and winning a foul in the 64 minutes he played.

Gyokeres was hauled down once when the sides met last week and was fouled four times when the sides met in the league phase of the competition. He’s averaging 1.87 fouls won per 90 in the Champions League this term, which is an average that holds pretty steady when looking at his games in the Premier League across a larger sample size (1.19 fouls won per 90).

Gyokeres is likely to face up against a centre-back duo of Pubill and Hancko, who struggled to contain Gyokeres last week. Both centre-backs committed at least one foul, and Hancko was shown a yellow card in the first leg draw between the sides.

Arsenal played some of the best football I've seen from them all season in their 3-0 win over Fulham last time out, crucially managing nine shots on target and drawing six saves from Bernd Leno in the Arsenal goal. Oblak was forced into just one save last week, but I can see him being busier here with Arsenal playing in front of their own crowd.

Oblak has been forced into making 32 saves across his 11 starts in the Champions League this season (2.91 per 90). This is just a touch below the line we require here, and I’d expect Oblak to cover it if he can raise his save percentage numbers (60.4%) which is quite low for a keeper of his quality and experience. 

If Atletico Madrid are to find a way through this tie, Oblak will be central to their efforts. He’ll be tested by a frontline that should have quite a bit of confidence having easily pushed Fulham to one side over the weekend as Arsenal close on in a potentially historic season.

I think Atletico Madrid had to take some sort of lead into this game to have a chance of qualifying for the final, the draw from the first leg isn’t a disastrous result but it also doesn’t look like enough when scanning over Arsenal’s impressive record at home in the Champions League this season.

Arsenal have not lost a single game in the Champions League this campaign, in fact they’ve only trailed for 43 minutes in the competition all season which was in their 1-1 draw with Leverkusen in the early stages of the knockout rounds. Their control and defensive stability is perfect for the structure of the Champions League and are traits that Atletico Madrid don’t really have with Simeone trying to move away from a reliance on that approach this season.

Arsenal have won five of their six matches at home in the Champions League this season, with the exception of a 0-0 draw against Sporting last time out, and have only conceded five goals across the entirety of the competition. I think it’ll be hard for Atletico Madrid to find a way through Arteta’s stubborn side, with Arsenal well prepared to take advantage.