Jakub Kiwior continues to impressed but absences give rise to concerns over PSG challenge 

Here's Ian Mills with his regular Three Things We Learned ahead of Arsenal vs PSG 

A sloppy performance sees more costly home points dropped as minds seemed to be on PSG already.

Here are three things that stood out for Ian Mills:  

1 - David Raya gets a bad night out of his system

– our Spanish goalkeeper has produced a fine season however his display here was far from his finest hour.

He flapped at crosses, went wandering too far off his goalline and dwelt too long on the ball as he looked either nervous, unfocused or a combination of the two.

While William Saliba was hugely at fault for Palace’s second equaliser, once more he had ventured too far off his line as Jean-Phillippe Mateta’s fine finish ensured a share of the spoils. The Frenchman even referenced Raya’s positioning after the game as had been studying how far he was moving off his line before he came as a late second half substitute. Raya did look particularly down at the final whistle – let’s hope it was just one of those nights and he can return to his real form next Tuesday.

2 - Jakub Kiwior continues to impress

– while you can question the marking at Martin Odegaard’s early free kick, you simply have to acknowledge the quality of our Polish centre back’s header that opened the scoring. He has started to form a much strong partnership with Saliba than anyone would have anticipated, and he outshone our ‘Rolls Royce’ with a series of blocks and interceptions most notably when he thwarted Eddie Nketiah finding the net in the first half.

His Arsenal future still appears to be somewhat uncertain and if we really do need to sell to be able to buy to ensure the club get their preferred targets this summer then his departure back to Italy might be on the cards.

We seem well stacked with defenders in the squad yet a lot of them are left backs. Several huge challenges await in the coming weeks and for me I would keep him at the club albeit he may want to move on to attain more regular first team football.

3 - Absences gives rise to concern for PSG challenge

- I heard a rumour pre match that Ben White was missing from the matchday squad due to his wife giving birth though this was quashed post match when Mikel Arteta confirmed that both White and Mikel Merino were unavailable due to injury and no timeline was put on their return.

White is understandably taking time to adjust to matches having missed so much football this season and in fairness, Jurrien Timber has shone in his place.

To have both back fit and available will give us a tremendous depth on the right-hand side of our back four. In addition, against Ipswich you could see glimpses of the almost telepathic link up he has with Odegaard and Bukayo Saka.

Meanwhile,  a few months ago, the thought of Mikel Merino being on the sidelines would not have ruffled too many Gooner’s feathers after a somewhat inauspicious start to his Arsenal career.

Yet, since moving upfront he has become a vital component in our first eleven and should he be unable to start the semi-final first leg, our team will be all the weaker for it.

Fingers crossed both players return to the squad for our biggest game of the season.