Clashing in competitive action for the very first time, Arsenal and Athletic Bilbao open their 2025-26 Champions League league phase campaigns on Tuesday at the San Mames Stadium.
The Gunners have only been on an upward trajectory in Europe since returning to the elite, while their hosts are competing in the Champions League proper for just the third time ever.
The lack of European silverware continues to bedevil all associated with Arsenal, who have not conquered the continent in any shape or form since winning the 1994 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, but there is a sense that Mikel Arteta's men are now genuine contenders for Champions League stardom.
After ending the club's seven-year exile from the tournament, Arteta guided the Gunners to the quarter-finals in 2024 before a semi-final showing in 2025, where they put up much more of a fight against eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain than Inter Milan did in the showpiece match.
Now entering a new European campaign on the back of a £250m summer spending spree, Arsenal harbour realistic ambitions of a Premier League and Champions League double, having amassed a respectable nine points from their first four games in the English top flight.
Despite missing Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Kai Havertz before losing Martin Odegaard to another shoulder problem, Arteta's men made extremely light work of Ange Postecoglou's Nottingham Forest on Saturday lunchtime, easing to a 3-0 win courtesy of a Martin Zubimendi double and Viktor Gyokeres's third in four matches.
){kind=link}
0 Comments