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Arsenal v Dortmund background

Arsenal FC hope to follow matchday five opponents Borussia Dortmund into the UEFA Champions League knockout rounds; avoiding defeat will guarantee progress.

Ciro Immobile scored his first UEFA Champions League goal in the home win over Arsenal
Ciro Immobile scored his first UEFA Champions League goal in the home win over Arsenal ©AFP/Getty Images

Despite their lapse last time out, Arsenal FC need only a point to reach the next phase for the 15th consecutive season as they face a Borussia Dortmund side who booked their place in the last 16 with victory on matchday four.

• The teams are in the same UEFA Champions League section for the third time in four seasons. Dortmund were 2-0 winners in Germany on matchday one, Ciro Immobile and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scoring either side of half-time.   

Previous meetings
• Last season Dortmund won 2-1 in London. Henrikh Mkhitaryan was on target for the visitors with Olivier Giroud equalising his early strike. Arsenal then triumphed 1-0 in Germany with an Aaron Ramsey goal.

• The lineups at the Arsenal Stadium on 22 October 2013 were:
Arsenal:Szczęsny, Sagna, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs, Rosický (Gnabry 89), Arteta, Ramsey (Bendtner 86), Wilshere (Santi Cazorla 58), Özil, Giroud.
Dortmund: Weidenfeller, Grosskreutz, Subotić, Hummels, Schmelzer, S Bender, Nuri Şahin, Błaszczykowski (Aubameyang 66), Mkhitaryan (J Hofmann 66), Reus (Papastathopoulos 87), Lewandowski.

• The teams finished level on 12 points with SSC Napoli – Dortmund in first place, Arsenal second.

• In 2011/12, Arsenal won 2-1 at home after a 1-1 draw in Germany, Shinji Kagawa scoring Dortmund's consolation.

Match background

Arsenal
• The November 2011 win over BVB was Arsenal's sixth in succession against German visitors; since then they have lost four in a row at home, most recently the 2-0 reverse against FC Bayern München in last season's round of 16 first leg which led to a 3-1 aggregate loss. It was the second successive year Bayern had eliminated them at that stage.

• Arsenal's home record against German clubs is W9 D1 L5; overall it is W14 D6 L11.

• The Gunners followed the defeat at BVB with a 4-1 home victory over Galatasaray AŞ, Danny Welbeck scoring a hat-trick, and then won 2-1 at RSC Anderlecht.

• In the return against the Belgian champions, Arsenal took a 3-0 lead before the hour only to be pegged back to 3-3. That put them on seven points, five ahead of third-placed Anderlecht and well placed to progress from the group for the 15th time in 17 seasons. 

Dortmund
• Dortmund have won both away games in Group D, against Anderlecht (3-0) and Galatasaray (4-0), and conceded only one goal so far, beating Galatasaray 4-1 at home on matchday four. 

• With maximum points so far, they hold a five-point advantage over Arsenal and have qualified for the knockout rounds for the third successive season. 

• Their last six UEFA Champions League away fixtures have produced five wins and a single defeat, 3-0 at Real Madrid CF in last season's quarter-finals which led to a 3-2 aggregate reverse. 

• Dortmund, winners in 1996/97 and runners-up two years ago, are in their tenth group stage campaign.

Coach and player links
• Tomáš Rosický played for Dortmund between 2000 and 2006, scoring 19 goals in 149 Bundesliga games.

• Mesut Özil faced BVB four times for Real Madrid in the 2012/13 UEFA Champions League, his 89th-minute free-kick earning a 2-2 group stage draw at the Santiago Bernabéu.

• Özil faced Dortmund eight times while with FC Schalke 04 and SV Werder Bremen (2006–10), scoring in Bremen's 1-1 draw in 2009.

• Lukas Podolski scored twice against Dortmund in 14 encounters during his eight years (2004–12) with 1. FC Köln and Bayern and helped Bayern to a 2-1 win over Dortmund in the 2007/08 German Cup final.

• Per Mertesacker scored two goals in 16 appearances against BVB while with Hannover 96 and SV Werder Bremen (2003–11).

• Arsenal's Mertesacker, Özil, Podolski and Dortmund's Mats Hummels, Marcel Schmelzer, Kevin Grosskreutz, Sebastian Kehl, İlkay Gündoğan, Matthias Ginter, Roman Weidenfeller, Erik Durm and Marco Reus play together for Germany.

• Łukasz Piszczek's Poland got the better of a Germany side featuring Hummels, Durm and Podolski in UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying on 11 October, a 2-0 win Germany's first defeat in 19 competitive matches.

• Jakub Błaszczykowski scored in Poland's 2-2 draw against Schmelzer's Germany in a September 2011 friendly in Gdansk. Wojciech Szczęsny was in goal for Poland and Hummels was on the German bench.

• Hummels scored in Germany's 1-0 win over a French side containing Mathieu Debuchy, Laurent Koscielny and Olivier Giroud in this summer's FIFA World Cup quarter-final.

• Sokratis Papastathopoulos scored Greece's equaliser against Joel Campbell's Costa Rica in the World Cup round of 16. Greece lost 5-3 in the penalty shoot-out.

Match facts

Arsenal
• Nacho Monreal is a yellow card away from a suspension.

• Arsène Wenger's side's 23-match unbeaten run at home in the Premier League – since a 3-1 loss to Aston Villa FC on the opening day of last season – ended on Saturday when they went down 2-1 to Manchester United FC, with Kieran Gibbs scoring an own goal. Jack Wilshere and Wojciech Szczęsny both went off injured.

• Olivier Giroud struck a stunning late consolation against United on his return from three months out with a broken leg.

• Arsenal have made their worst ever start in the Premier League era, with just 17 points from 12 games. They have won just four in the league this campaign; they had nine victories at the same stage last term.

• Having squandered a three-goal advantage at home to Anderlecht, Arsenal let slip a lead again on 9 November, conceding twice in the final 15 minutes as they lost 2-1 at Swansea City AFC.

• Alexis Sánchez has scored nine goals in his last nine outings for club and country, including the opener in Chile's 5-0 defeat of Venezuela on 14 November and their subsequent 2-1 loss to Uruguay.

• Welbeck is the five-goal joint top scorer in UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying. He registered twice as England came from behind to triumph 3-1 over Slovenia at Wembley on 15 November.

• Wilshere provided the pass for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to head the opening goal in England's 3-1 friendly victory against Scotland three days later.

• Yaya Sanogo was on target twice before the break as France Under-21s recovered from two down to beat their England counterparts 3-2 in a Brest friendly on 17 November.

• Koscielny has not featured since returning from international duty in mid-October with an Achilles problem.

Dortmund
• Dortmund have started a UEFA Champions League campaign with four wins for the first time. The last time they opened a group stage with three victories, in 1996/97, they went on to lift the trophy.

• Reus was carried off with ankle ligament damage in Saturday's 2-2 draw at SC Paderborn, and has been ruled out for two months. He had earlier given the visitors a 2-0 lead just before half-time.

• The Schwarzgelben condemned VfL Borussia Mönchengladbach to their first defeat of the season in all competitions on 9 November, winning 1-0 at home.

• Papastathopoulos has not played since suffering a calf injury against Mönchengladbach and Sven Bender missed out on Saturday because of a hip problem.

• Hummels, out with an ankle problem since 1 November, returned to training during the international break.

• Nuri Şahin, yet to make a competitive appearance this season because of a knee injury, and Oliver Kirch (out since 19 August, thigh) were involved in a friendly against the club's U23 side during the international break.

• Błaszczykowski has resumed training. The midfielder has been sidelined with a knee injury since January, and also suffered a thigh strain in September.

• Adrián Ramos scored the only goal as Colombia triumphed 1-0 in Slovenia on 18 November.

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