When we were drawn against Slavia Prague in this season’s Champions League, many Gooners’ minds would have turned the clocks back to October 2007 and Emirates Stadium’s first magical European night.
While it was the first-ever meeting between the teams, we had already recorded six wins out of six against Slavia’s city rivals Sparta. That included a 2-0 away win in October 2005 when Thierry Henry broke our all-time scoring record, and we started the 2007/08 campaign by beating them in both legs to qualify for the Champions League group stage.
Having navigated that hurdle, our tournament began by defeating Sevilla 3-0 in N5, and then we pipped Steaua Bucharest 1-0 away from home before our matchday three visit from the team from the Czech capital, when the free-flowing, title-chasing Gunners were about to excel themselves in a marvellous exhibition of attacking football.