Patrick Vieira will go into Arsenal's crucial Champions League encounter with Bayern Munich at Highbury tonight facing another domestic ban, having been charged by the FA with misconduct following the physical Premiership game at Leeds nine days ago.
Vieira, who has served a five-match suspension this season after two sendings-off had brought his total number of red cards at Arsenal to six, was charged after the FA's video advisory panel had studied separate incidents with two Leeds players, Eirik Bakke and Olivier Dacourt. If found guilty he could be suspended for three more games.
Vieira was not among the seven Arsenal players shown yellow cards by Dermot Gallagher but the referee has since admitted failing to spot the confrontations on which the FA has acted. While Dacourt has insisted that his fellow-Frenchman did not mean to kick him in the throat Bakke said "the head-butting was not the only thing Vieira did to me in that game".
Earlier yesterday Arsenal's manager Arsene Wenger, who himself is appealing against a 12-match touchline ban imposed for an alleged shove on the fourth official at Sunderland on the opening day, said that if Vieira was accused over the Leeds incidents "then many players in other games will have to be charged as well".
However Wenger did not believe Vieira would be affected against Bayern in a match Arsenal need to win to repair the damage to their Champions League prospects after losing 4-1 to Moscow Spartak. "This game is too big for that," he said.
Vieira, moreover, can take heart from the familiar obstacle to English footballing ambitions that will tonight stand between Arsenal and a win. At 32 Stefan Effenberg, once the most mixed-up midfielder in the German game who used to be in frequent trouble with the authorities, is playing some of best football of his career.
If Effenberg needed any extra motivation tonight it will surely be the memories of the way Bayern lost the 1999 European Cup final to Manchester United after they had scored first and hit the bar twice. Effenberg and Jens Jeremies dominated the midfield then and Arsenal will look to Patrick Vieira and Gilles Grimandi to deny the Bayern pair a similar command.
Like Arsenal, Bayern had not won for five matches before Saturday's 2-0 victory over Bayer Leverkusen, the German league leaders. Arsenal, however, were less convincing in beating Southampton with Vieira's late header and no recognised striker has scored in open play since the 50 defeat of Manchester City five weeks ago.
Whether or not this is about to change may depend on the state of Dennis Bergkamp's sore hamstring when he has a fitness test today along with four other casualties. Tony Adams (toe), Vieira (ankle) and Grimandi (ankle) will probably play but the calf injury Silvinho suffered at the weekend may bring in Ashley Cole at left-back.
Arsenal: Manninger; Luzhny, Keown, Adams, Cole; Ljungberg, Grimandi, Viera, Pires; Bergkamp, Henry.
Bayern Munich: Kahn; Kuffour, Sforza, Linke; Fink, Effenberg, Tarnat, Jeremies; Scholl; Elber, Zickler.
