Of the injury victims, Patrick Vieira is the most likely to be able to play in spain on Wednesday. He took part in light training today and is rated at 50-50. If you're looking for something more upbeat, TeamTalk reckon he is "set to boost Arsenal's hopes", following intensive treatment to his knee.

If Vieira does make it, the defence will at least have quality protection in front of them. But it looks like they'll need it. Keown and Cole are of course ruled out, Luzhny is "in the final stages of rehabilitation", and Campbell and Seaman are both said to be "highly doubtful". It looks likely that Cygan and Stepanovs will start, which does not really need commenting upon. Gilberto stepped in for Keown when Martin went off injured on Saturday, and by most accounts looked safer than Cygan. It's not impossible that he'll play there again, although that might well depend on Vieira's availability. It seems likely that the defensively able Parlour will be in midfield. Defensively able, that is, when he doesn't get caught in possession on the edge of our box like he did for Blackburn's opener at the weekend.

Some better news is that Valencia's superb winger Kily Gonzalez is out of the match. He was stretchered off from their 1-0 loss at Athletic Bilbao on Sunday with knee ligament damage, and will be out for a number of weeks. The bad news is that, having only just returned from injury, he's not a player they've been relying on this season.

Rupe adds...
Tuesday update: Seaman has been ruled out. Sol's chances of playing have gone up to 40%, but Paddy's haven't changed (both have flown to Spain). Wenger has confirmed that Stepanovs in in line to stand in for Sol.

And Valencia are missing Baraja (suspended). That's good news. One of their other players (Aimar I think) said this week that he rated Baraja as better than Vieira.

Seaman, incidentally, is also doubtful for England's Euro qualifiers on March 29th and April 2nd and we guess that the same applies, but less so, to Sol. Not that this is going to be a predominant worry for Arsenal fans.