How much will experience play a part in tonight’s game?
Mikel Arteta and his Arsenal squad are in Germany to face off against Bayern Munich at The Allianz Arena tonight, and although Bayern have had a tough season by their standards, they’re still a great team with a lot of quality. Bayer Leverkusen won the Bundesliga on the weekend for the very first time and Bayern Munich are no longer champions after 11 straight seasons’ lifting the title.
Bayern also obviously have a lot more experience in the Champions League format, having won the trophy a massive 6 times and have been a key part in the competition for decades. Whereas Arsenal haven’t been in the Champions League since the 2016/17 season and have never won the competition. So how much will experience in the European competition play a part in tonight’s clash?
In my opinion, there’s a first for everything and sooner or later Arsenal are bound to win The Champions League, I’m not saying I’m 100% confident it will happen this season but I do think we have a chance, but of course, coming up against a team like Bayern, at their home, will be a massive challenge for us, especially when this is our first season back in the competition in 7 years.
We have a younger squad as well and some of our players are still learning and growing and I think this season has showed the amount of quality we possess and what we can do, but in such a huge prestigious competition like this, experience will play a big factor and the fact were facing them on their own turf, in front of thousands of their fans, will also no doubt play a big factor in how the game goes.
I know there will be a lot of travelling support and belief amongst those fans that Arsenal can get the job done, because we have so many times this season and although we’ve had some tough games, playing away from home, we’ve looked good, but this does feel like a whole new kettle of fish, and we would be naïve to think it wouldn’t be a challenge.
Having such a young side could be our downfall tonight and this is where I think players like Havertz (although still quite young), Jesus, Gabriel, Jorginho and Partey, could become huge parts of tonight’s game, on or off the bench. We need players with experience and knowledge to back our young guns and make sure they stay grounded and concentrated. Playing or not, the whole match day squad tonight will be important and considering we are coming up against one of Europe’s best winning sides, we will need all the support and experience we can get.
What’s your thoughts Gooners?
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