Morning all.
Arsenal kick off their Champions League campaign this evening with a trip to face Napoli. The team were delayed leaving London yesterday, so we didn’t get a Mikel Arteta press conference, but the team news is that Cristhian Mosquera remains sidelined with the injury that forced him off against Aston Villa last week, but there’s good news in that Jurrien Timber is back in the squad.
That is a very positive development. Aside from his Champions League final cameo in Budapest, he hasn’t played since March 14th when picked up an injury in the 2-0 win over Everton. That’s a long time without competitive football, but hopefully his return is timely. Ben White has started the season well but when I look at both our right backs, in my opinion there’s a strong line between their injury issues and the burden we’ve had to place on them because the other one has been absent. Hopefully tonight is an opportunity to give Timber some minutes, start easing him back into action, and bolstering our depth in that position. I wonder too if we might see Piero Hincapie start at left-back, and if that might have an impact on who plays ahead of him.
In midfield, there must be some temptation to stick with what has worked well thus far, but we have a tricky visit to Sunderland on Saturday, and I do think Mikel Arteta needs to look at the league phase of Champions League versus the Premier League as the competition where there’s a bit more margin for error. It could be Declan Rice, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Martin Odegaard; he could even rotate completely and play Martin Zubimendi, Mikel Merino and Bruno Guimaraes; but there’s certainly room to shift things up in this area of the pitch because of the depth and quality he has at his disposal.
The only real change I can see in the front three is the possible inclusion of Eberechi Eze on the left, particularly if Hincapie gets the nod behind him, but Arteta seems to like what Christos Tzolis gives the team in tandem with Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz, so it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see them start later on.
Speaking as they waited for air traffic control issues to ease, the Arsenal boss said of tonight’s game:
“It will be a really tough place, I’ve been in that stadium before, I know the atmosphere they create, their record at home is really, really strong. They have a very experienced manager, a lot of players that played in the league as well, so we know the challenge ahead. We are prepared and we’re ready to go.”
And on another Champions League tilt:
“I’m really excited. We know what this competition means to all of us, the experience of last year as well, so we need to start with the first game in a really, really tough place, but really excited to start the campaign.”
One thing I’m curious about is how the perception of Arsenal might impact how teams set up and play against us this season. It was only three years ago we were making our first steps back into the Champions League after a long time out of it, but showed plenty as we reached the quarter-final stage. Beating Real Madrid the way we did on the way to the semi-final in 2025 made people sit up and take notice, and we came within a penalty shoot-out of winning it last season.
So I think our reputation as very tough opposition will have been solidified, not least because we come into this season as Premier League champions. Napoli are at home, and the onus will be on them to take the game to us, but Max Allegri is typically quite a defensive coach, and you can imagine that he’ll be determined to try and make difficult for us in that sense. So, if there are periods of this game where we’re trying to break down an obstinate Italian defence, I wouldn’t be at all shocked, then it’s about making sure we manage those moments of transition as and when they happen. There are some familiar names in the Napoli squad too, but let’s hope we can demonstrate why they’re no longer plying their trade in the Premier League.
You take nothing for granted at this level, but there’s no reason Arsenal shouldn’t feel confident for this one. Napoli have lost their last two, and while the occasion will certainly generate a big atmosphere in that stadium, we have the quality and the experience to deal with that. So, fingers crossed.
Right, I’ll leave it there for this morning. As ever, we’ll bring you live blog coverage of the game later, as well all the post-game stuff on Arseblog News like the match report, player ratings, manager reaction, quotes round-up and more. We also have a bit of a preview pod on Patreon, chatting about this game, and the Champions League more broadly, and we’ll have a post-game Arsecast for you in the morning too.
Catch you later for the game.