Arsenal’s record last year was amazing in the Champions League and they’re going to be there or thereabouts again – but I don’t think they bought that X factor signing to take them to that next level.
They have enough to win the Premier League with their squad. I just think the forward line against the big boys, they’re missing that little ingredient.
If they’d had a Vinicius Junior or a Julian Alvarez, that would have given them the edge to go on and win the Champions League.
I think they might just fall short.
I’m a big fan of Kai Havertz. He does a lot of work and he’s what I call a good footballer. He works hard and makes the right decisions. I just think he’s not going to score 20 goals in a season. To take them to the Premier League title, there’s no doubt about it, he’s a top-drawer player.
The other thing I look at is when Arsenal go and play against Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain, teams like that in the Champions League latter stages, the centre-halves and the full-backs, getting up in the morning and going to their team talk and saying to one of the other players, “Didn’t sleep very well last night, a bit worried about who I’m playing against”.
I don’t see that for Arsenal. Maybe Bukayo Saka for the left-back, but they haven’t got that X factor.
I think that’s what they found out in the final last year. Arsenal had no pace getting forward, and PSG just squeezed the game up and didn’t let Arsenal out of their half. That would be the worry.
They had been so close to winning the Premier League and then they got over the line, I wouldn’t say comfortably, but they’ve kicked on again.
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Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta says they are prepared for the start of their Champions League campaign against Napoli.
They’ve got some good players. I think they could have gone on again and bought a real, real superstar. But their squad is immense. It’s so solid.
It’s so hard just to get a shot off against them, let alone score a goal. Chelsea went there with one of the best, if not the best, front threes in the Premier League.
They scored after 77 seconds, but I can’t remember them ever looking like they’d score another goal after that. So that just shows you how dominant Arsenal are at the moment.
It’s important you start well in the Champions League. When the tournament changed to this format, teams struggled. They had eight games, they thought they’d win enough and get through. Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain struggled at times to get through.
And then last year, everybody tried to get their wins under their belt very, very quickly. This is an important game tonight. They’ll want to keep the momentum going.
If you’d said to me a year or two ago, Napoli away, I’d have said it was a hard game. But Chelsea went there in Europe and beat them and they hadn’t been beaten for a long time at home. So they’re beatable and I don’t expect Arsenal to lose.
Follow Napoli vs Arsenal on the Sky Sports app with our dedicated match commentary from 6.30pm on Wednesday.
