Del Piero ruled out of Highbury clash
The 31-year-old Italy international suffered a hamstring strain after 16 minutes of Saturday's 1-1 draw with Roma in Turin.
Del Piero has fallen behind David Trezeguet and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the strikers' pecking order and was not expected to start at Highbury.
Arsenal had an unexpected break at the weekend, but vice-chairman David Dein insisted the Gunners would have preferred to play Saturday's postponed clash at Fratton Park against Portsmouth.
Referee Mike Riley called the game off with an hour to go before kick-off after heavy rainfall on the South Coast, but Dein insisted that the postponement only caused Arsenal another headache with a frenzied end to the season approaching.
"It gives us a fixture problem because we are already going to play probably three games in the last six, seven days of the season and it's difficult to know where we can reposition this particular fixture," Dein said.
Riley's decision frustrated the home side, with Pompey manager Harry Redknapp rueing the fact he missed the chance to mastermind a victory over the London side.
"I'm disappointed," said Redknapp. "We were prepared to play because it would have been a good time to play Arsenal and I've played on worst surfaces than that but we have to abide by the referee's decision, even though it is against us."
On Saturday AC Milan defeated Fiorentina 3-1 at the San Siro, while neighbours Inter went down 1-0 at Parma.
Yesterday, attention switched to the relegation battle and Empoli made the best progress with a 2-1 win over Livorno moving them four points clear of the drop zone.
Francesco Tavano gave them the lead six minutes before half-time and Antonio Busce made it 2-0 before Cristiano Lucarelli's late penalty set up a nervy finale.
They remain two points behind Reggina, though, after the Amaranto's 2-0 win at relegation rivals Cagliari.
Messina and Udinese remain 18th and 17th respectively after a 1-1 draw at the Stadio San Filippo, while 19th-placed Lecce managed to gain ground on the pair with their 2-1 win at Siena.
Bottom club Treviso are 14 points adrift of safety after a 1-0 defeat at Palermo, while in other games Lazio beat Sampdoria 2-0 to leapfrog Livorno into seventh, while Chievo needed an injury-time equaliser from Amauri Carvalho de Oliveira to avoid defeat at Ascoli and draw 2-2.
In Spain, Real Madrid convincingly defeated Deportivo La Coruna 4-0 at the Bernabeu last night.
Having failed to achieve a win in their last three games a victory was imperative for Real and they went ahead after 10 minutes through a Hector Berenguel own-goal. Strikes from Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos and Julio Baptista then finished off a disappointing Depor.
With just eight games left in the Spanish league, Real cut the deficit to arch-rivals Barcelona to 11 points after the Catalan side's surprise draw at bottom-placed Malaga, and moved back up to second after rivals Valencia and Osasuna both lost away from home.
Bayern Munich are just four wins away from collecting a 20th Bundesliga title after stretching their lead at the top to nine points with a 3-1 win over MSV Duisburg on Saturday.
Second-placed SV Hamburg lost 4-2 at home to Borussia Dortmund and with just seven games left to play Bayern need 12 points to notch their sixth title in eight years.
Bayern went behind against Duisburg shortly before half-time with Abdelaziz Ahanfouf scoring from the penalty spot but Bosnian international Hasan Salihamidzic equalised in the 66th minute.
Dutch striker Roy Makaay then put Bayern ahead in the 76th minute and Claudio Pizarro scored again four minutes later to cap the comeback.
After the game Duisburg coach Jurgen Kohler, who won the title as a Bayern player in 1990, said the championship race was over. " We saw the German champions today," Kohler declared. "For 65 minutes or so we made life difficult for Bayern but their individual class shone through."
In Holland, an unexpected 2-0 defeat at home to Den Haag ended Feyenoord's challenge for the Eredivisie but AZ Alkmaar's 1-0 win at RKC Waalwijk keeps the race barely alive.
AZ needed a goal from Haris Medunjanin to see off RKC and trim PSV's lead to nine points.
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