Eduardo returns as Arsenal take on Standard Liege

Arsenal are in Belgium tonight to take on Standard Liege in their first game of the group stages of the Champions League, and Arsene Wenger will be hoping to end a run of two consecutive away defeats to both Manchester sides in the Premier League.

The Gunners will be boosted by the unexpected return to club colours of Croatian striker Eduardo, who had his two-game European ban rescinded by Uefa on Monday night. Indeed had Arsenal's appeal against the Uefa sanction not been successful, they would have struggled to field a forward line, with Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott, Andrei Arshavin all missing tonight's tie through injury.

Wenger has spoken to journalists about his satisfaction at the reversal of the Eduardo ban, and about how he feels some referees have already started to adjudicate against Arsenal as a result of a perceived strain of 'cheating' at the club.

"What I feel," Wenger told the Guardian, "is that we didn't get the penalty at Manchester United with Arshavin [after a challenge from Darren Fletcher], and it was a direct result of that [the incident against Celtic]. We didn't get the penalty at Manchester City with the Gareth Barry handball; again, it was a direct consequence of that."

As suggested at the time in The First Post, the Arsenal player's inability to win a penalty in national colours against England when he was tackled heavily in the box by Glen Johnson has also been noted by his club manager. "It's a consequence of it as well," Wenger replied.

Their opponents tonight have had similar issues as the Londoners about official sanctions for their players. Liege midfielder Axel Witsel, the Belgian league's player of the year, is currently serving an eight-game ban for a horror tackle two weeks ago that broke the leg of Anderlecht's Marcin Wasilewski in two places. Extraordinarily, Witsel could figure tonight as his ban only applies to domestic football.

Wenger says he is acutely "aware of the Witsel tackle, although I haven't seen it", not least because a similar challenge on Eduardo by Martin Taylor of Birmingham City in February 2008 saw the player ruled out for an entire year. Wenger's take on the punishment that Taylor should have received immediately after Eduardo's injury - and subsequently retracted - was that the City defender should have been banned for life.

Now he is altogether more circumspect: "To get the right level of punishment is very difficult. We have seen that with Eduardo's case, when he was injured for 18 months; Taylor got a three-match ban. I think we progress slowly but comparing different punishments is difficult."

The match will see Thomas Vermaelen, Wenger's big signing of the close season, return to his homeland. The former Ajax defender has won over the Emirates faithful with his assured performances to date and shouldn't be too troubled tonight. ·