UEFA Champions League Group E: The Champions League is back with all its hoopla, self-regard and theme music. Arsene Wenger would surely prefer a self-effacing tone, because the last thing Arsenal need is a reminder of the competition's all-consuming significance. The staging presents footballers as gladiators but it would suit the manager better if they could sidle into the event.

After 45 matches unbeaten in the Premiership one can see why he wishes his side to go calmly about their normal business against PSV Eindhoven this evening. "I wouldn't like to draw a difference between the League and the Champions League," Wenger said disingenuously, "because it's basically just football. What we want to focus on is the quality of our game and being relaxed."

This is all very well-intentioned but it would take superhuman willpower for anybody at Highbury to stay quite so detached. Clubs that progress as Arsenal have done in domestic football reach a stage where a Champions League title is not so much an ambition as a painful omission on their record.

In public Wenger will never be party to such reflections and he makes light of any suggestion that this competition can be a sacred quest. "If you do well in the Champions League, people will say that you won't be a great team until you win it again," he pointed out. "The demands always get higher."

His ironic attitudes, however, cannot always insulate his squad from a widespread wish to see an indubitably thrilling Arsenal win this next May. The footballers invested too heavily in the dream 12 months ago when the group phase opened with a 3-0 defeat by Inter Milan at Highbury.

"We rushed into the Champions League last year by thinking that we had to make the difference quickly and we forgot the basics," Wenger remembered. "We were caught out on every break and we were 2-0 down early on. We have to show we have learned from it."

This is the nub of the matter. The manager wants the team to keep on playing in its current majestic rhythm but it is idle to pretend that the Champions League is a mere extension of the Premiership. Arsenal's wounding experience shows otherwise, even if it did happen to be another English club, Chelsea, who knocked them out in the quarter-finals last season.

As Wenger appreciates, the influx of foreign players to the Premiership in recent years does not mean that the transition to the Champions League is now simple. "At this level you have teams who are the top of their (domestic) championships," he said, "and they are used to taking the game to you. PSV know they have to win every game in Holland and they are used to playing against teams who defend. They will not be scared (of Arsenal)."

Guus Hiddink's side should not suffer from the timidity of many Premiership visitors to Highbury but they are unsettled in some respects. Mateja Kezman and Arjen Robben left for Chelsea in the summer, while Dennis Rommedahl moved to Charlton. There has been an influx of signings that included Phillip Cocu but PSV are not so established as Wenger's line-up.

The Arsenal manager's additions commonly merge effortlessly into the pattern. Even Wenger is surprised by the swift integration of Jose Reyes. The Spaniard may replace Robert Pires this evening and Wenger is hopeful that Freddie Ljungberg's back strain will not rule him out. The opposition will lack the injured defender Kasper Bogelund and have a doubt over Alex, the Brazilian centre-half who hits free-kicks with savage power.

ARSENAL (probable, 4-4-2): Lehmann; Lauren, Toure, Cygan, Cole; Ljungberg, Gilberto, Vieira, Reyes; Bergkamp, Henry.

PSV EINDHOVEN (possible, 4-3-3): Zoetebier; Ooijer, Alex, Bouma, Lee; Van Bommel, Cocu, De Jong; Park, Vennegoor of Hesselink, Beasley.

Referee: D Messina (Italy).