Arsenal start Champions League marketing campaign at Europa League winners Atalanta – dwell

Gabriel Jesus scored in all four of his Champions League starts for Arsenal last season – with all four coming in the group stages.

The Brazilian has played just 17 minutes this season, but captains Arsenal tonight in the absence of Martin Odegaard.

Mikel Arteta makes two changes to his team that started against Tottenham at the weekend. Declan Rice returns from suspension and replaces Jorginho in midfield, while there is a surprise up front as Gabriel Jesus is handed a start. Leandro Trossard drops to the bench, with Kai Havertz expected to play in midfield.

Bukayo Saka is passed fit, Riccardo Calafiori is on the bench and there’s no Martin Odegaard.

Arsenal: Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber, Partey, Rice, Havertz, Saka, Martinelli, Jesus.

Subs: Neto, Porter, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly, Kiwior, Jorginho, Nwaneri, Gower, S. Oulad-M’Hand, Trossard, Sterling, Butler-Oyedeji.

Plenty of questions surrounding how Arsenal will set up this evening, having got through last weekend’s north London derby unscathed but with Manchester City away at the Etihad to come this Sunday, 22 September.

The new format of the Champions League means that tonight is far from a must-win game for the Gunners, so it stands to reason that Mikel Arteta will rest several of his key players tonight. Anyone who started last week’s win at Spurs in contention to start on the bench this evening, from William Saliba and Gabriel to Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz – however, the bench at Spurs was probably a little too inexperienced for Arteta to make too many changes.

Declan Rice could feature after sitting out last weekend through suspension, while Gabriel Jesus could start in place of Havertz and Raheem Sterling could make his first start for the club. And could Ethan Nwaneri feature from kick-off?

Arteta is a fan of continuity in his starting line-ups, but with such a tough test ahead on Sunday, who knows what the Spaniard will set up with tonight.

We’ll find out in about 15 minutes.

A reminder of the early team news ahead of the line-ups being released around 6.45pm BST.

Atalanta are without a couple of major players including striker Gianluca Scamacca and centre-back Giorgio Scalvini. New addition Ben Godfrey will also miss out through injury and Rafael Toloi is a doubt.

Arsenal are missing captain Martin Odegaard, new signing Mikel Merino and full-backs Takehiro Tomiyasu and Oleksandr Zinchenko. Declan Rice is available after a domestic suspension.

Riccardo Calafiori could return, while Bukayo Saka is set to be available despite limping off the north London derby.

In some of the difficult early seasons in north London, and even when things started to pick up and there was interest elsewhere, there was a particular motivation that drove Mikel Arteta. That was to become the first manager to win the Champions League for Arsenal. While returning the Premier League trophy to the club has obviously been just as high, Europe’s greatest prize was repeatedly mentioned. There would obviously be something unique, and euphoric, about achieving that. You only had to see the glee on his face when Arsenal finally got back into the Champions League again last season. It was visible once more on Wednesday night, as he spoke about preparing for the Atalanta game and the heightened stage.

This is where the club belongs.

It is by now a well-worn discussion to ponder whether Arsenal are the biggest club to never win the Champions League, especially since it’s probably true. It also remains remarkable that London clubs as a whole only have two, both through Chelsea’s victories under Roman Abramovich in 2012 and 2021, respectively.

When Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin attends the first games of the new Champions League this week, it will be with a considerable security detail. This has led to grumbles from federation staff, especially since very few people outside football know what he even looks like. There have probably only been two moments when the Slovenian official was properly in the public eye.

One was when the Super League was launched in April 2021 and Ceferin admirably defended the spirit of European football in a defiant media appearance, all while lambasting executives as “snakes” and “liars”. Less publicised from that day was the fact Uefa were also in the process of approving the changes to the Champions League we are going to see enacted this week.

This directly led to the second time, as Ceferin was inexplicably put front and centre of Uefa’s launch video at the group-stage draw. There was no doubting who the star was supposed to be, given there were even jokes at Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s expense. The many actual football stars in the video weren’t given anything like the same status.

The Champions League is back for 2024/25 and Arsenal head to Bergamo to kick-off their continental campaign, but there is one unusual aspect about their first fixture.

In fact, given it’s an entirely new format for the European calendar after Uefa’s sweeping reforms of how the elite clubs will compete, there’s lots which is unusual, starting with the fact this is one of eight league-phase fixtures the Gunners will play, rather than six.

To spread focus around the other competitions – the Europa League and Conference League are both following the wider format of one enormous league system from this year – Uefa declared that each competition will have a single gameweek when they are the only European competition playing.

As such, rather than nine games on Tuesday and nine on Wednesday – which will be the case for matchday two on 1 and 2 October, then again for matchdays three to seven – the first round of games in the Champions League will be split across three nights.

After such a grand build-up, the new Champions League’s opening night didn’t exactly suggest new excitement – or much unpredictability at all. Every single one of the pre-match favourites won. At least five of them, and arguably six, did so in a very comfortable manner. Bayern Munichwent beyond comfort. They eviscerated Dinamo Zagreb 9-2, a result that should be very damaging for a launch night. It was worse than what came before.

The Champions League itself, of course, has been a powerful engine in creating this disparity. It’s another reason this doesn’t bode well.

Here’s a breakdown of Arsenal’s confirmed fixtures in this year’s revamped Champions League format.

19 September

20:00 Atalanta – Arsenal

20:00 Arsenal – Paris Saint-Germain

22 October

20:00 Arsenal – FC Shakhtar Donetsk

6 November

20:00 FC Internazionale Milano – Arsenal

26 November

20:00 Sporting Clube de Portugal – Arsenal

11 December

20:00 Arsenal – AS Monaco

22 January

20:00 Arsenal – GNK Dinamo

29 January

20:00 Girona FC – Arsenal