We look ahead to Thursday’s UEFA Champions League game at Gewiss Stadium with our Atalanta vs Arsenal prediction and preview. Can the Gunners start with victory in Bergamo?
Atalanta vs Arsenal Stats: The Key Insights
- The Opta supercomputer has Arsenal as the narrow favourites for this clash, with the visitors winning 39.2% of 10,000 pre-match simulations.
- Arsenal have lost their last three away games in this competition in Italy.
- Bukayo Saka was involved in eight goals in nine Champions League appearances in 2023-24 (4 goals, 4 assists), the most by an Englishman in their debut season.
Arsenal head to Bergamo on Thursday for their Champions League opener against Atalanta fresh off the back of a crucial Premier League victory at the weekend.
Mikel Arteta’s side start the restructured competition on the road, buoyed with confidence after Sunday’s hard-fought 1-0 victory away to fierce rivals Tottenham.
Gabriel Magalhães headed home the second-half winner at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, sending Arsenal on their travels with an impressive victory that reinstated their early season title credentials.
Arteta’s men reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League last term, though a different challenge awaits in 2024-25 with teams playing eight other sides – four home and four away – as all 36 clubs battle in a single league table for the group stage.
Heading into UEFA’s revamped format, Arsenal have won their opening match in each of their last six major European campaigns (five in the UEFA Europa League and last season’s Champions League).
The last side to beat Arsenal in their first game was Dinamo Zagreb in the 2015-16 Champions League, though last season’s Europa League winners will fancy their chances at home in their curtain-raiser.
A 3-0 victory in last campaign’s Europa League final against Bayer Leverkusen was Atalanta head coach Gian Piero Gasperini’s 50th game in charge of the club in major European competition (excluding qualifiers). The veteran boss has won just under half of those (48%), with 24 victories (D14 L12).
Ademola Lookman will be one to watch out for, having scored five times in his final three Europa League starts last season – including a hat-trick in the showpiece against Leverkusen. He also scored the winner this past weekend as Atalanta overcame Fiorentina 3-2.
Lookman’s never scored in four prior appearances against Arsenal, however, while his only Champions League appearance was in October 2019 for RB Leipzig against Zenit.
Goals could be on the cards, too, given Atalanta’s last four games in this competition – all in the 2021-22 group stage – saw both teams score two or more times each (D2 L2). Having said that, in the entire history of the European Cup, no side has ever both scored and conceded 2+ goals in five consecutive matches.
From 23 Champions League matches overall for the Serie A side, their games have averaged 3.6 goals per game (40 for, 43 against), the second-most of any team to feature 20+ times in the competition, behind Viktoria Plzen (3.8 per game).
Adding Arsenal’s scoring record in Europe to the equation, an exciting goal-laden encounter may await at Gewiss Stadium. Only Atlético Madrid (+6.16) overperformed their expected goals (xG) total by a higher figure than Arsenal’s +5.49 in last season’s Champions League (19 goals from 13.51 xG).
Arteta’s men also posted the third-highest shot conversion rate in the competition last term (15.7%), behind only Manchester United (16.9%) and Atlético (16.8%), suggesting Gasperini must be cautious of Arsenal’s deadly finishing, rather than the quality of chances they create.
Raheem Sterling, introduced from the bench against Tottenham last time out, could make his Champions League debut for Arsenal here and would become the first player in European Cup history to play for four different English teams.
Having previously played for Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea, Sterling would surpass David Batty (Leeds, Blackburn, Newcastle), Yossi Benayoun (Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea), William Gallas (Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs) and Kolo Touré (Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool) as players to play for three English clubs in Europe’s top competition.
Though Sterling may have to wait for his chance from the start, Arteta will certainly look once more to Bukayo Saka, who was involved in eight goals in nine Champions League outings last term.
His four goals and four assists marked the most direct goal involvements by an Englishman in their debut season in the competition, breaking the record set by Lee Bowyer for Leeds in 2000-01 (6 goals, 1 assist).
Atalanta vs Arsenal Head-to-Head
A revamped competition brings fresh meetings aplenty, with this the first time Atalanta and Arsenal have ever competed against each other.
Arteta’s away side will be the fifth English team Atalanta have met in major European competition, after Everton (W2), Man City (D1 L1), Liverpool (W2 L2) and Man Utd (D1 L1).
However, Arsenal have lost their last three away Champions League games in Italy, suffering defeats against Roma (1-0 in 2009), Milan (4-0 in 2012) and Napoli (2-0 in 2013).
The Napoli loss was Arsenal’s last such trip to Italy, however, with Arteta’s new-look Gunners aiming to atone for previous failures on their next quest for European success.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Atalanta vs Arsenal Prediction
The Opta supercomputer backed Arsenal as the slight favourites on Thursday – the visitors triumphed in 39.2% of 10,000 pre-match simulations.
Gasperini’s men were victorious in 34.8% of the same data-led sims, with the draw predicted in 25.9% of scenarios.
In Opta’s tournament predictions, Arsenal are the fourth favourites to win the revamped Champions League, with their 6.3% chance behind Inter (10.9%), Real Madrid (18.2%) and Manchester City (25.3%).
Atalanta, meanwhile, have a healthy 62.9% likelihood of escaping the group stage, though just a 28.8% hope of reaching the quarter-finals in Opta’s tournament simulations.
Atalanta vs Arsenal UCL Squads
Atalanta: Rui Patrício, Marco Carnesecchi, Francesco Rossi, Rafael Tolói, Odilon Kossounou, Isak Hien, Ben Godfrey, Raoul Bellanova, Berat Djimsiti, Matteo Ruggeri, Sead Kolašinac, Davide Zappacosta, Juan Cuadrado, Mario Pašalić, Éderson, Marten de Roon, Lazar Samardzic, Marco Brescianini, Nicolò Zaniolo, Ademola Lookman, Charles De Ketelaere, Mateo Retegui, Vanja Vlahović.
Head Coach: Gian Piero Gasperini
Arsenal: David Raya, Neto, Tommy Setford, William Saliba, Kieran Tierney, Ben White, Gabriel, Jurriën Timber, Jakub Kiwior, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Riccardo Calafiori, Thomas Partey, Martin Ødegaard, Leandro Trossard, Jorginho, Mikel Merino, Kai Havertz, Raheem Sterling, Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli.
Head Coach: Mikel Arteta
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