I know I did. But UEFA today confirmed that a victory by any scoreline tomorrow night will assure Arsenal of qualification.

As always the details are confusing, but apparently if Arsenal, Deportivo and Juventus all finish on 10 points (which is what would happen if Arsenal beat Deportivo, Deportivo beat Leverkusen and Juve beat Leverkusen and Arsenal) Arsenal would qualify ahead of Juve because to quote UEFA "If two or more teams finish equal on points after all the group matches have been played the team with the higher number of points obtained among the teams in question qualifies."

This would essentially mean that the results against Leverkusen would be ignored, leaving Deportivo with seven points, Arsenal with six points and Juventus with four if all three teams were to finish on 10 points.

Whatever happened to good old fashioned goal difference eh?

Rupe adds...
Many thanks to Dom for posting this, hopefully it will stem the flow of emails I've been getting from Gooners trying to explain how we need to score at least 3 goals tomorrow!

See Leberhosen report for more details, and Champs Lge page for more on the way these leagues are ordered.

It's worth noting that so long as we win tomorrow, the score is likely not to matter at all, even as far as topping the group is concerned. If we beat Depor, it's odds-on we'll lose in Turin (because Juve will need to win and we won't need any result at all). This would very probably produce that 3-way tie on overall points which will be decided as Dom describes, so the goal tallies won't matter.

I've also been getting emails asking us to let Arsenal know! Well, we think they know already. Post-match interviews with both Wenger and Henry from after that last match suggested that they knew very well that only a win was needed against Depor. But Sol Campbell has been quoted today as saying, "I am looking forward to the Deportivo game. We know that if we win, then we have a great chance of reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League." Yes Sol, a 100% chance.

Then there's this Telegraph report, quoting Wenger as saying we're "90% certain" to go through if we win. But Arsenal.com have got it right.

I don't want to sound negative, but it's worth noting that Depor's confidence is high, and any kind of win will be enough for Depor, too.