Arsenal will be eager to replicate their great progress in the Premier League when they return to Champions League action on Tuesday night.
Mikel Arteta’s Gunners made light work of Brighton on Saturday evening to return to the top of the table.
Better still for Arsenal, Liverpool weren’t able to leapfrog the Gunners at the summit after drawing 2-2 at Manchester United on Sunday.
Now, Arsenal will turn their attention to the Champions League, where they face one of their old bogey teams in the quarter-finals of the competition.
The first leg sees the Gunners host Bayern Munich at the Emirates Stadium, and unlike in previous years, the north Londoners are favourites.
In years gone by, Arsenal were routinely knocked out of the Champions League by Bayern. Indeed, their last three games against the Bavarians all ended 5-1.
However, the Gunners are now a title-challenging powerhouse, while their opponents are set to relinquish their near-monopoly over the Bundesliga title this year.
Arsenal v Bayern Munich predicted XI
Arsenal have pretty much a clean bill of health ahead of the Bayern match, with just Jurrien Timber – who has been recovering from a long-term injury – likely to miss out.
Arteta has a selection headache of the good kind for the match, as he needs to decide which players to pick in certain positions. And they’ve all staked good claims.
Obviously most of the team picks itself. For instance, we’re very likely to see David Raya in goal, with Ben White, Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba in front of him.
Left-back is a little trickier, with Arteta needing to pick between Takehiro Tomiyasu, Oleksandr Zinchenko or Jakub Kiwior.
We reckon the Arsenal boss will opt to give Tomiyasu his 11th start of the season. The £20million man is arguably the best one-v-one defender at N5, and Bayern boast a dangerous attack.
Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard pretty much pick themselves, and even though Jorginho is being played a lot at present, his experience in high-pressure games means he’ll almost certainly play if fit.
It’s similar with Bukayo Saka, whose workload has been huge in recent years, but with a game of such magnitude, the only way he’s not getting in the XI is if he’s out of action.
Kai Havertz has proven a revelation at No. 9 so he’s bound to start, and then on the left, we reckon Gabriel Jesus will get the nod over Gabriel Martinelli thanks to his experience.
Predicted Arsenal XI v Bayern Munich (4-3-3): Raya; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko; Odegaard, Jorginho, Rice; Saka, Havertz, Jesus
Arsenal v Bayern is set to kick off at 8pm BST on Tuesday night, with the return leg scheduled at Bayern’s Allianz Arena for Wednesday 17 April at 8pm BST.
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