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The original was posted on /r/gunners by /u/Mahoganychicken on 2024-09-17 10:19:10+00:00.
🕟 Kick Off: 20:00 BST
📍 Location: Gewiss Stadium, Bergamo, Italy
📺 UK Broadcaster: TNT Sports
🙎🏻♂️ Referee: Clement Turpin
🔴 Arsenal Team News:
- Tierney is absent with a thigh injury.
- Odegaard missed the game against Spurs with an ankle injury and will likely remain unavailable.
- Merino will miss the game with a fractured shoulder.
- Calafiori left international duty early after sustaining an injury and missed the Spurs game.
- Tomiyasu is recovering from a knee injury sustained in the summer.
⚽ Arsenal Form: 🟩🟧🟩🟩🟩
🔵 Atalanta Team News:
- Scamacca and Scalvini are both long term absentees with ACL injuries.
- Toloi will miss the game with a muscular injury.
- Godfrey will be unavailable with lumbago.
⚽ Atalanta Form: 🟩🟥🟥🟩🟥
📖 Match Facts:
- The two teams have never faced off before.
- Despite winning the Europa League last season, Atalanta gained access into the Champions League via finishing third in Serie A last season.
- Atalanta’s best run in the UCL was in 19/20 where they reached the Quarter Finals.
🎲 Odds (Betway):
- Atalanta – 3/1
- Draw – 13/5
- Arsenal – 7/8
✍🏼 Pre-Match Ramblings
With the season well and truly underway after a pointless international break, Arsenal kick off their Champions League campaign with a fixture against a brand new opponent. It’s always exciting to face a team that we haven’t played against before – or maybe it’s just me.
Atalanta managed to bounce back from a 4-0 battering from Inter as they managed to beat Fiorentina in a back and forth game that ended 3-2 in their favour. Arsenal, too, managed to bounce back after a disappointing (and disgraceful) draw against Brighton with an absolutely huge win at Three Point Lane, even with a large list of absentees including Rice and Odegaard. The former will be back in the starting 11 for this game as he was serving a suspension after a silly red card against Brighton. Odegaard still has question marks over his availability – even if fit, I would expect him to sit this one out, especially with a trip to the Emptihad looming over us on Sunday.
This seasons Champions League sees it take on a new look format, doing away with the old group stage and replacing it with one big league. Personally, aside from adding more fixtures, I am a fan of this change. It will be interesting to see Arsenal face a wider variety of teams, and it solves the issue of the later group stage games feeling pointless. It may do us a disservice in having changes to play youth, unless we walk the league stage and secure our position in the Top 8 before the final game(s).
Arteta will be grossly aware of the history of Arsenal in this competition, although we achieved the feat of not being eliminated in the RO16 last season. We need some European pedigree to really establish ourselves as a force in Europe, and with the Premier League title looking more and more out of reach every season with City getting better and better, it may be worth putting more eggs in the European basket than the domestic one.