Arsenal can win a seventh successive UEFA Champions League game for the first time in their history but Inter stand in their way. We look ahead to Tuesday’s mouth-watering match with our Inter vs Arsenal prediction and preview.
Inter vs Arsenal: The Key Stats
It’s tough to choose between the sides, with the Opta supercomputer giving Inter a 36.9% chance of success compared to Arsenal’s 36.8%. Over a quarter (26.3%) of our simulations ended in a draw, too.
Gabriel Martinelli will become the first Brazilian player to score in six successive Champions League appearances if he finds the net against Inter, surpassing five-game streaks by Neymar (2015 and 2017) and Jardel in 1999.
Since the start of 2024-25, Arsenal’s David Raya has prevented the most goals of any goalkeeper in the Champions League (+7.3).
Arsenal will aim to retain their 100% record in the Champions League this season when they take on last season’s runners-up Internazionale at San Siro on Tuesday.
The Gunners are the only unbeaten team left in the competition and need just a point in Milan to secure automatic qualification to the last 16, but they will set their longest winning run in Europe’s premier club competition (7) if they take all three points.
Their impressive streak of six wins has included victories over Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid, with their aggregate score of 17-1 including five clean sheets. The only other English team to at least equal that goal differential through their first six matches in a single edition of the Champions League since 1992-93 is Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool in 2017-18 (+17 – 23 goals, 6 conceded), when they went on to finish as runners-up to Real Madrid.
Mikel Arteta’s side will be eager for a positive result after a frustrating 0-0 draw with struggling Nottingham Forest on Saturday saw them miss out on a chance to move nine points clear at the Premier League summit.
But Inter themselves will be looking to bounce back from successive Champions League losses against Atletico Madrid and Liverpool – the latter ending their 18-match unbeaten home run in the competition. They have not lost three in a row since 2011, when coach Cristian Chivu was part of the playing staff.
Despite those defeats sending them down to sixth in the league phase table, they are unbeaten in their seven Serie A matches since their last European outing.
Lautaro Martínez‘s early goal was enough to secure a 1-0 victory over Udinese on Saturday, keeping them in command at the top of the table.
Argentina international Martinez typically thrives in home Champions League games, too, scoring the joint-most goals in such fixtures since the start of 2025 – eight, which is level with Serhou Guirassy.
That is also as many as the rest of the Inter squad have managed in the same span, and two of those goalscorers – Hakan Çalhanoglu and Denzel Dumfries – are expected to miss out through calf and ankle issues respectively. Raffaele Di Gennaro (wrist) and Tomas Palacios (thigh) are also likely to be absent, but backup goalkeeper Josep Martínez may be able to return to the bench after spraining his ankle.
Arsenal are still likely to be without Max Dowman (ankle), Piero Hincapié (groin) and Riccardo Calafiori (muscular). Cristhian Mosquera could be in line for some game time after six weeks out with an ankle injury, though, having been an unused substitute against Forest. The centre-back could be used to give Gabriel Magalhães or William Saliba a rest given Arsenal’s strong position in the table.
Inter vs Arsenal Head-to-Head
This will be the fourth meeting between the sides in the Champions League. Inter have won two of the previous three, including the most recent encounter in last season’s league phase when Çalhanoglu’s penalty gave the Nerazzurri a 1-0 victory.
That result was the latest chapter in Arsenal’s Champions League struggles in Italy. They are winless in their last five trips, only managing one draw and failing to score a single goal. You have to go all the way back to March 2008 for their last victory – a 2-0 success against AC Milan.
But San Siro is not quite the fortress for Inter that it used to be. They have lost two of their last three home matches against English opposition (both against Liverpool), which is as many as they suffered in their first 10 such games in the competition.
Inter vs Arsenal Prediction
Recent form suggests that Arsenal go into the match with the upper hand, but the results from the Opta supercomputer put very little between the teams.
Inter came out on top in 36.9% of the simulations we ran, which is practically identical to the win rate Arsenal achieved (36.8%). That leaves the likelihood of a draw standing at 26.3%.
Inter vs Arsenal Prediction
Inter vs Arsenal Predicted Lineups
Inter Milan: Yann Sommer, Francesco Acerbi, Manuel Akanji, Alessandro Bastoni, Luis Henrique, Nicolò Barella, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Piotr Zielinski, Federico Dimarco, Marcus Thuram, Lautaro Martínez.
Head coach: Cristian Chivu
Arsenal: David Raya, Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Eberechi Eze, Martín Zubimendi, Mikel Merino, Noni Madueke, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli.
Head coach: Mikel Arteta
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 15,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this week, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
UEFA Champions League Stats Opta
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