Slavia intent on improved showing

It will not be hard for SK Slavia Praha to improve on their Matchday 3 experience. A 7-0 defeat in North London left the Czech Republic team shell-shocked while Arsenal FC were accepting the acclaim for equalling the record UEFA Champions League victory and need just a single point from their trip to Prague to seal their qualifying place from Group H.

• It will be no mean feat should Slavia – who have three points and trail second-placed Sevilla FC by the same number – recover from the setback in time to get their own qualification quest back on target. After starting the campaign on a positive footing with a 2-1 home win against FC Steaua Bucureşti they have endured two heavy defeats with the Arsenal disappointment preceded by a 4-2 reverse against Sevilla.

• They will want to avoid the start to the game witnesssed at the Arsenal Stadium two weeks ago when Cesc Fabregas fired the home team into a fifth-minute lead. It went from bad to worse with a David Hubáček own goal followed by further strikes from Theo Walcott (2), Aleksandr Hleb, Fabregas again and Nicklas Bendtner.

• The game was Slavia's first in the UEFA Champions League against English opponents and they would have wanted more breathing space than the intervening two weeks before facing Arsenal again. They had previously met teams from England on four occasions in the UEFA Cup and managed just a single victory.

• That came in the 1999/00 quarter-final when they beat Leeds United AFC 2-1 but as they had lost the away leg 3-0 it was not enough to remain in the competition. Last season Slavia went down 1-0 at home to Arsenal's north London neighbours Tottenham Hotspur FC, losing by the same score in the away leg two weeks later.

• The critics queued up to shower lavish praise on Arsène Wenger's side after their goalscoring spree on 23 October, matching Juventus's mark against Olympiacos CFP in December 2003 which had previously stood alone as the biggest win in UEFA Champions League history.

• It was Arsenal's third win in three outings – coming after a 3-0 success against Sevilla and a 1-0 victory away to Steaua – and a draw in this game would mean they could ease through the gears in their two remaining group fixtures knowing they were assured of a place in the knockout stage.

• They have already won in Prague this season when late goals from Fabregas and Hleb in the Sparta Stadium yielded a 2-0 victory against AC Sparta Praha in the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round first leg, completing the job with a 3-0 home success. Arsenal faced the same team in the 2000/01 and 2005/06 group stages and enjoyed wins in every fixture. In the first campaign they followed a 1-0 away victory with a 4-2 margin at home. The scorer of Sparta's second goal was Tomáš Rosický, who is now starring in Arsenal colours and who scored in the 3-0 second-leg victory against his former club mentioned above.

• Five years later Thierry Henry's two goals in Prague secured another convincing group success for his team while taking him to a club record 186 goals in all competitions on his 303rd appearance.

• In the other Group H fixture, Steaua host Sevilla.