Mikel Arteta was able to turn to his bench and bring on the ‘finishers’ to put the result beyond Bayern - Reuters/Peter Cziborra
Something rather unusual occurred after 68 minutes of Arsenal’s heavyweight clash with Bayern Munich: with the score at 1-1, Bukayo Saka was substituted. In any previous season under Mikel Arteta, such a decision would never have been made. When Saka was fit, he played. Even when Saka was not fully fit, he still played.
The Arsenal of 2025-26, though, is a different beast to any of Arteta’s earlier teams. These days, not even Saka’s position in the team is sacrosanct. Arteta has so much firepower on his bench that he can ask Saka to exhaust the opposition’s defence for an hour before then throwing other forwards into the mix. It is a truly remarkable amount of muscle they now possess.
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It spoke volumes of this extraordinary depth that Arsenal’s two second-half goals against Bayern were both scored by substitutes, Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli. Madueke’s effort was assisted by another substitute, Riccardo Calafiori, as the “finishers” in Arteta’s squad overran and overpowered a Bayern team that had not previously lost a game this season.
And this was achieved in the absence of all three of Arsenal’s centre-forwards. Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus all remain unavailable, yet Arteta still had enough attacking dynamite to blow apart one of the best teams in Europe.
In the Champions League this season, Arsenal’s substitutes have now contributed eight goals and assists (five goals, three assists). That is the most of any team in the competition.
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How many other Champions League teams could come into a clash of this magnitude with attacking players of the quality of Madueke, Martinelli and Martin Odegaard waiting on the bench? Very few, if any. If you include Gyokeres, Havertz and Jesus in that mix, Arsenal surely have the most high-quality offensive players of any side in Europe. Not even Real Madrid have an attacking arsenal to compare with Arsenal’s.
It has come at a cost, of course, but buying these players for big transfer fees is just the first step. The more important step for Arteta is to use them properly, at the right moments. To identify which match requires which individual, and which minute in the game requires which substitution.
How delighted the Spaniard must have been, then, that his 68th-minute changes proved to be so effective, so soon after they were made. Madueke was shifted from the left wing (where he had replaced the injured Leandro Trossard) to the right, and scored seconds later. The cross was delivered by Calafiori, just moments after his own arrival onto the pitch.
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The goal was Madueke’s first for Arsenal and he celebrated it with a furious passion that spoke to his own determination to prove his doubters wrong. “He has worked incredibly hard to come back from injury,” said Arteta of Madueke. “He gave us something, a different edge in that front line.”
Martinelli’s goal, Arsenal’s third, was yet more proof of the strength in depth at the Emirates Stadium. With Bayern attempting to push high up the pitch, they left space in behind for Martinelli to run. Few players are more dangerous when hurtling towards goal in a straight line. Eberechi Eze, another of Arsenal’s top-class attackers, was celebrating long before Martinelli rolled the ball into the net.
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None of these interventions by substitutes provide a guarantee of success this season, of course. Eventually, it will come down to fine margins and moments of luck. But this dismantling of Bayern provided the most compelling evidence yet that Arteta possesses all the tools he could possibly need to make this a defining campaign in Arsenal’s history.