🕟 Kick Off: 20:00 GMT

🏟️ Venue: Emirates Stadium

📺 UK Broadcaster: TNT Sports

🙎🏻‍♂️ Referee: Marco Guida 🇮🇹

📹 VAR: Aleandro Di Paolo 🇮🇹

🔴 Arsenal Team News:

• Gabriel Magalhaes: Out with a thigh injury, sustained playing for Brazil. Expected to be sidelined for several weeks, likely until late December or January.
• Gabriel Jesus: Recovering from a knee (ACL) injury. Training with the team but not expected to return until early January 2026.
• Martin Odegaard: Has been struggling with a knee injury, missed several matches but has returned to full training. Wasn’t ready for the Spurs game but might feature in this match.
• Kai Havertz: Knee injury, supposedly suffered a recent minor relapse in his recovery. Arteta claims he is close to returning.
• Viktor Gyokeres: Muscle problem, missed the Spurs game but is expected to return soon.

⚽ Arsenal Form: 🟩🟧🟩🟩🟩

🇩🇪 Bayern Munich Team News:

• Jamal Musiala: Long‑term absentee after a broken left leg and ankle dislocation in July; back in light ball work but not expected to play competitively before December 2025 at the earliest, with Bayern targeting full fitness around January 2026.
• Alphonso Davies: Recovering from a serious knee/ACL injury and only recently back in parts of team training; not in contention for the current Arsenal game and broadly expected to return to competitive action around early 2026.
• Hiroki Ito: Sidelined with a foot injury and listed as out for recent fixtures; no precise public return date, but indications suggest he will miss the late‑November games and is aiming for a comeback sometime in December 2025.
• Luis Díaz: Serving a three‑match suspension after a red card against Paris Saint‑Germain.

⚽ Bayern Munich Form: 🟩🟧🟩🟩🟩

⚔️ Head-to-Head:

• Bayern Munich 1-0 Arsenal (17 Apr 2024, Champions League QF)
• Arsenal 2-2 Bayern Munich (09 Apr 2024, Champions League QF)
• Bayern Munich 5-1 Arsenal (07 Mar 2017, Champions League RO16)
• Arsenal 1-5 Bayern Munich (15 Feb 2017, Champions League RO16)
• Bayern Munich 5-1 Arsenal (04 Nov 2015, Champions League Groups)​

📖 Match Facts:

• Arsenal have played Bayern Munich 14 times, managing 3 wins (8L 3D). Their last victory was in 2015 in the Champions League group stage where Giroud and Ozil scored to give Arsenal a 2-0 at the Emirates.
• Mikel Arteta was an unused sub in the aforementioned victory against Bayern Munich.
• Harry Kane has scored 15 goals in his career against Arsenal. He has only scored more against Leciester (20) and Everton (16).

✍🏼 Pre-Match Ramblings

Arsenal face Bayern Munich in a London Derby sandwich week in what feels like an all too common fixture to take place at the Emirates. That head to head makes for horrible reading, although the club has certainly come a long way in that gap between 2017-2024. A gap that saw 2 manager changes, club heirarchy changes, boardroom changes – Arsenal are almost unrecognisable today compared to back then. It is unthinkable now that any team would beat us 15-3 on aggregate over 3 consecutive fixtures.

Bayern Munich have been flying under Vincent Kompany (although they fly under most of their managers), and Harry Kane has well and truly settled into that side, having managed 17 G/A in 10 starts so far this season. We all know that he seems to always score at the Emirates, and it’s usually a penalty. Arsenal have yet to concede a penalty this season, so if there was ever a player to do it against, it’s Harry Kane.

Arteta will be facing off against a good friend of his in Vincent Kompany, a fellow manager who learned a lot from Pep Guardiola. Kompany struggled in the Premier League with a Burnley team not set up to succeed in the Premier League, but he earned his flowers in getting them back into the Premier League which would eventually gain him enough favour to land the Bayern job.

Many fans seem to be happy to rotate the squad for this game, but I just can’t see Arteta putting out a heavily rotated team against a European giant like Bayern Munich. A game in the Champions League at the Emirates against Bayern Munch should be a huge event, it’s just a side effect of the new UCL format that we absolutely can afford to not win this game. The game at the weekend against Chelsea seems far more important, and maybe it is. We could go 9 points clear of them, as they are somehow the team currently closest to us in the league (what are City and Liverpool even doing?). The most rotation I can evisage is perhaps Kepa and MLS getting a game. Beyond that, I wouldn’t expect any surprises.