After three long weeks without any real football to speak of, here it is.

The game that dare not speak its name.

Nervous? Terrified? Excited? Confident?

All these emotions will  have seeped into your mind and out again and now, as we have just two days to go to the big match, I would hazard a guess that it's fear that is currently the overriding emotion.

City haven't lost at home since before the last World Cup and they've barely drawn any of their games either.

A trip there is a foregone conclusion 'L' on the season's record, for almost all teams, Real Madrid included.

We've all seen the games at the Emptihad on TV, where City remorselessly pass, pass, pass, until they smell blood and then pounce like a puma on a lame zebra.

Arsenal currently has the best defence in the Premier League, if anyone can keep City out it's us, but every player will need to perform beyond even this season's expectations if we are to come home with a result.

A point will do. A win would send Gooners into ecstacy, a state of mind which I doubt any of us will ever return from, the Spy included.

Our last win at City's usually half-empty rented accommodation was over nine years ago in 2015, when a Santi Cazorla inspired performance led us to a well deserved 2-0 win. We've lost every game since, save for a 2-2 draw in 2017.

Now is the time for us to go there and plant our flag on their lawn and make a statement.

Our time has come. City are currently racked with injuries, but then so are we. Will Martinelli make it? Is Saka suffering from a proper injury and not just a made up one to keep him away from Southgate's "let's burn out as many players as possible" regime.

Sadly Declan didn't have any such luck and the be-suited Satan lookalike forced Rice into 180 minutes plus of action on wet pitches. Thanks Gareth.

If ever you wondered why managers keep pulling players with injury out of your squad, now you know.

How about playing Declan for 60 minutes in both games instead, knowing what Arsenal's April schedule looks like?

Will Big Gabi make it? I can't imagine going to City, our biggest away game of the season so far, without Gabriel.

It just can't happen and it won't. One thing is for sure. The fear and tension we felt during the home leg against Porto, will be nothing compared to what we're going to have to endure on Sunday.

It will be one of those games (as was Porto) where you wonder why you put yourself through it and wish beyond anything you had never discovered the 'joys' of football, because in games like these and finals and Porto, you can never really enjoy it.

You only enjoy it when it's over and let's hope that this week we can pour ourselves a large brandy, sit back and look forward to Match of the Day 2, where we can watch it all over again, but this time without the tension, fear and nerves.

Go for it Arsenal, you know you can do it. Pretty please.