Henry may well be rested (especially after telling the press how knackered he is at the moment), and maybe Pires too. With Bergkamp (presumably) not making the trip to Valencia it's particularly important that the attacking threat of Pires is available. The flip side of that is that Bergkamp will probably play.

Also definitely out of the game are David Seaman (with a slight hamstring problem), Sol Campbell (still having trouble with his achilles), and Patrick Vieira (knee). Arsene Wenger has said that he is optimistic that all 3 will be ok for the trip to Spain. So Stuart Taylor will play in goal, and Cygan will be in defence. Ray Parlour is expected to replace Vieira, but it's quite possible that Edu will get to play as well.

Campbell's absence means that Keown won't get a rest (particularly as Luzhny and Cole are both still out), and so Martin will probably wear the skipper's armband.

Blackburn Rovers welcome back Damien Duff to the squad. He's been out for 6 weeks with hamstring trouble, the same thing which will cause David Dunn to miss the game. David Thompson is out having had knee surgery, and Lucas Neill is suspended.

The absence of Neill in defence is compensated for by the return of Craig Short and Gresko, both of whom missed the Man City game through injury. Hakan Sukur has recovered from a knock picked up in Kanu's charity game last week and is contention for a striking place (along with Yorke and Cole).

If Seaman had played it would have been his 1000th first-team appearance (for club or country). He will become only the 3rd English player to reach that milestone (after Tony Ford and Peter Shilton), and it'll probably happen on Wednesday.

The Premiership run-in spreadsheet is now up to date (ie before this weekend's games).