The Champions League took center stage this night with the first set of fixtures under the new format going underway.
Premier League outift, Aston Villa had the honor of featuring in the first game of the match day, dispatching Young Boys in Switzerland. Juventus also played the early fixture against PSV Eindhoven, comfortably dispatching them in front of their home fans. The 8.00pm matches saw Liverpool shake off the disappointment of the weekend’s loss to Nottingham Forest with an impressive 3-1 win over AC Milan, Viktor Gyokeres continued his amazing goalscoring form for Sporting CP, providing the first goal in a routine 2-0 win over LOSC Lille Metropole, defending champions, Real Madrid got their campaign underway with a victory over Stuttgart and Bayern Munich was in cloud nine when they took on Dinamo Zagreb.
A preview of Atalanta Europa League performances last season
The Atalanta higher ups are eagerly anticipating the clash with Arsenal in their much-improved home ground, and Arsenal will not be under any illusions on the threat Atalanta would pose. On their road to winning the Europa League last season, Atalanta finished in first place in a group that had Sporting CP, Sturm Graz and Rakow Czechtochowa. Their knockout round adventure in the competition started with a Round of 16 clash against Sporting CP again, before defeating Liverpool and Olympique Marseille in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. The final clash against an unbeaten Bayer Leverkusen side was a hugely anticipated encounter, but Atalanta ran out as 3-0 winners thanks to an Ademola Lookman hat-trick.
Thoughts on Mikel Arteta’s potential team selection against Atalanta
I would expect a similar lineup from the team that slugged out three points over arch-rivals, Tottenham, at Tottenham Stadium, but I will expect Declan Rice to return to the team ahead of Jorginho. Gabriel Jesus showed amazing form in the Champions League last season, so I’d be hopeful he gets the nod against Atalanta from the start, dropping Kai Havertz to central midfield. This should allow Leandro Trossard start on the left wing ahead of Gabi Martinelli.
We will get more information from Arteta’s next press conference, but I will expect the selected XI to go out there and fight for that shirt. I just hope there will be no hungover performances from David Raya’s birthday party that took place over the weekend.
