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GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 Bayern Munich (Timber 22)
Who needs Gabriel Magalhães? Saka whips in a peach of a corner to the near post. There are so many bodies in there, perhaps eight men within a few inches of each other there, and Timber rises the highest to glance a header into the net. Neuer came to claim the cross and got nowhere near it!
21 min: Better from Arsenal, who get their press right and force Bayern into a mistake at the back. The Germans are on the back foot and Zubimendi wins a corner. Here come the cavalry from the back.
18 min: For the first time, Olise has a chance to go at Lewis-Kelly and the Bayern man beats the left-back, earning a free-kick. The set piece is easily cleared by Rice (I think) at the near post.
15 min: Merino drops deep, drawing the Bayern centre-backs out and Raya pumps a long ball into the space, with Saka just beaten to the ball by an onrushing Manuel Neuer, who is all too willing to do his sweeper-keeper party trick. Saka actually takes the ball in the face and is forced to take a knee with blood coming from his nose. But after brief attention from the physios, Saka is OK to continue.
13 min: Bayern having plenty of the ball, with nearly 70% possession away from home. That’s some going at Arsenal.
11 min: Harry Kane is predictably being booed every time he touches the ball. The striker is dropping deep, but has yet to get into any dangerous position. It will be interesting to see who the runners are beyond Kane with Luis Diaz suspended. Neither Gnabry or Olise are flat out sprinters in the way that Diaz is, or Sané was last season.
9 min: Bayern are holding a high line and catch Trossard lacking, although it takes an age for the referee to blow for offside, with a brief panic in the Bayern ranks before the official’s flag was raised.
7 min: Liverpool are losing at home to PSV. Get the latest with Scott Murray in our clockwatch.
6 min: Interesting that Laimer is playing left back tonight for Bayern. Naturally right-footed, he will look to stop Saka from cutting in on his left foot from Arsenal’s right flank.
4 min: Tah bundles into Eze and Arsenal have a first set piece to throw into the Bayern box. A first examination for the visitors’ defence and one they pass with flying colours as they expertly hold the offside line and catch five Arsenal players offside from Rice’s delivery.
2 min: You might think that Karl could show signs of nerves. But the 17-year-old, playing in the No 10 role for Bayern Munich, is pinging the ball about with the grace and confidence of a veteran.
Peeeeeeep!
We are off in north London.
“No Calafiori - fair enough; he’s a bit of a galloper, and deserves a rest after chasing around in pretty well all of the games this season,” emails Charles Antaki. “Also Lewis-Skelly must have reached the stage of muttering under his breath and looking pointedly at the manager, so giving him a start ought to take that simmering pan off the fire. He’s more of a scurrier to be sure, but defensively tenacious, so that might well be what’s in order tonight. Good to see the captain on the benches again; but nobody begrudges Eze another chance to float about and sting.”
Here comes the teams! Screams of encouragement from both players as they leave the tunnel to the tune of the Champions League anthem, after red fireworks are splayed out from the roof of the Emirates into the London sky.
Eze with a wry smile to the camera as the camera pans along the line of the players, a la Ronaldinho licking his lips and rubbing his hands.
Arsenal in their home kit – red shirt, white shorts, red socks – while Bayern are in a fetching all-black away kit.
This is worth a read.
Tonight’s two early kick-offs have finished. FC Copenhagen nearly blew a 3-0 lead but held on for a 3-2 win against minnows Kairat, while Cyriot side Pafos have earned a remarkable 2-2 draw with Monaco, with – get this – David Luiz on the scoresheet! Aged 38 years and 218 days, the former Chelsea and PSG defender has become the second-oldest player to score a Champions League goal, behind only Pepe for Porto v Shakhtar Donetsk in December 2023 (40 years, 290 days).
Mike Arteta, Arsenal manager, speaks to TNT about his selection choices:
The headaches are going to be a little bit harder. Cristhian Mosquera and Myles Lewis-Skelly deserve to play. We have to manage the squad and the load that we have. We have a game every three games.
We knew that Eze would be good in an Arsenal shirt. We just didn’t know he would be this good, this quickly.
Speaking of waif-like athletes who have a wand of a left foot and are preparing to face Arsenal …
Here is how Bayern got on at the weekend: they recovered from going 2-0 down to beat Freiburg 6-2.
Yes, Olise scored twice and provided three assists but Lennart Karl was also central to that comeback, becoming the youngest player in Bayern’s history – aged just 17 years and 273 days – to score and set up a goal in a single Bundesliga game.
For those that are catching up, the boy is a bit special. The teenager scored his first goal for Bayern last month and also became the club’s youngest scorer in Champions League history with his goal in the 4-0 triumph over Club Brugge in late October.
Two changes for Arsenal from the side that beat Spurs as Cristhian Mosquera comes in for Piero Hincapié at centre back and Myles Lewis-Skelly replaces Riccardo Calafiori at left back.
No player has scored more goals against Arsenal at the Emirates than Harry Kane (six) and the Englishman leads the line tonight for Bayern. You might notice that Luis Díaz is missing from Kompany’s squad – the former Liverpool winger has been on fire for Bayern since joining in the summer but is serving the first of a three-game European ban after being sent off against PSG in the last round.
The teams!
Arsenal: Raya, Timber, Saliba, Mosquera, Lewis-Skelly, Eze,
Zubimendi, Rice, Saka, Merino, Trossard.
Subs: Arrizabalaga, Setford, White, Hincapie, Odegaard, Martinelli, Norgaard, Madueke, Nwaneri, Calafiori.
Bayern Munich: Neuer, Laimer, Tah, Upamecano, Stanisic, Kimmich, Pavlovic, Olise, Karl, Gnabry, Kane.
Subs: Ulreich, Urbig, Kim, Goretzka, Jackson, Bischof, Ito, Guerreiro, Boey, Mike.
Referee: Marco Guida (Italy)
Away from the Emirates, it’s quite the night of European football. PSG, last season’s winners, host Tottenham. Internazionale travel to Atlético – one for the pragmatists, that. Hipsters, fear not, we have you covered with Eintracht Frankfurt v Atalanta. And a potential banana skin? Olympiakos v Real Madrid has all the makings of an upset. You can follow all that in our clockwatch with the esteemed Scott Murray.
Back to more serious matters. Sean Ingle has spoken with various stat gurus as he attempts to answer two questions:
1. How much stronger the Premier League is now compared with 2015, when Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were at Real Madrid and Barcelona, and Pep Guardiola was masterminding Bayern’s destruction of Arsenal?
2. Could it be better for a team who play in an ‘easier’ league – such as Bayern and PSG – to keep players fresher for the Champions League knockout stages? Or do clubs such as Arsenal and Manchester City benefit from tougher domestic competition?
Speaking of Eze v Olise, who can forget the famous table tennis and chess matches (both won by Olise) of 2023?!
Preamble
At 4/1 and 5/1 respectively, Arsenal and Bayern Munich are the favourites to win this season’s Champions League outright, and it’s not really a surprise. Both are top of their domestic leagues by six points. Both retain a 100% record in Europe going into this match – come the end of it, that obviously won’t be the case.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and his Bayern counterpart, Vincent Kompany, have spent the build up to this one talking up their opponents. Arteta believes the Gunners remain in a “different universe” to Bayern given they have yet to win the Champions League, while Kompany claim the Londoners are the “most difficult task” the German side could be … um … tasked with. “[Arsenal] play with great physicality,” added the Bayern boss.
It’s true we would have never gotten this match in the old Champions League format, but given the relative lack of jeopardy in the league phase, this match does not carry the weight of previous knockout encounters between the two. The two sides met last year in a close two-legged quarter-final, with a 2-2 draw at the Emirates followed by a 1-0 win for Bayern in Bavaria. Before that, you’d have to go back to 2017 and the last knockings of the Arsène Wenger era. Neither set of fans have forgotten the 10-2 aggregate shellacking served by Bayern, two 5-1 pastings, home and away.
That’s a lot of history that probably doesn’t mean too much to the new players uninitiated in this fixture. Two of those are Bayern’s Michael Olise and Arsenal’s Eberechi Eze – the former Crystal Palace pals reuniting on club football’s biggest stage and both come into this match in sparkling form: Olise bagged two goals and provided three assists in Bayern’s 6-2 win over Freiburg on Saturday, while Eze netted a hat-trick for the Gunners in the north London derby. Not bad for a couple of lads that used to hack it around in the Championship.
This is a mouthwatering match. You don’t want to miss it.
Kick-off: 8pm GMT.
