Wenger and Walcott primed for Arsenal´s Bayern challenge

Arsene Wenger suggested he is unlikely to make wholesale changes for the Champions League match against Bayern Munich, where he feels Arsenal will need “something special”.

Arsenal continued their impressive Premier League form this season with a 3-0 win at Watford on Saturday to stay within two points of leaders Manchester City.

It has been a different story in the Champions League, where back-to-back defeats against Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiacos have left Wenger’s men in an unenviable position ahead of their double-header with the Bundesliga giants.

Some of Wenger’s selections in the Champions League so far, most notably the decision to rest goalkeeper Petr Cech, have come under the microscope, but he suggested it will be a familiar line-up that takes to the field against Bayern at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday.

“For me the game was important because I knew to win was vital to stay in touch with the top teams and best way to prepare for Tuesday night,” Wenger said after the win at Vicarage Road.

“I don’t know yet [whether I will make changes] but there’s no obvious reason to change the team completely.

“Maybe one or two, I don’t know yet. I will see how everyone recovers.

“I could rest [Mesut] Ozil and [Alexis] Sanchez a little bit, but we have to put pace into the game. We play against a big team, but we have proved ourselves from a bad position in the Champions League and we want to make something special against Bayern because that’s the only way we can stay in the race.”

Arsenal forward Theo Walcott believes the impressive 3-0 victory over Manchester United before the October international break shows that his team-mates have the capacity to cause Bayern problems.

“Playing against Bayern and their quality is of course going to be a challenge for us, but we are at home with our support and we need a similar sort of performance like we had against Manchester United,” he told the Sunday People.

“We know we can beat anyone and we’re going to be completely ready for this one.

“We need to move on from the first couple of results in the Champions League. We know we are capable of getting results against Bayern and we want to put things right.

“Looking at our last Premier League home match against United, the intensity of our game was different to what it was like against Olympiacos in the Champions League.

“We want put it right and we just need to work hard – that is what it comes down to. If everyone is doing their job on the day it is difficult to beat us.”