Juventus’ defeat to Empoli last night (Monday) has made it incredibly likely that Arsenal will indeed be in pot two of the UEFA Champions League for next season. This is a significant boost for the club who could have been in the third-tier list of teams and facing an incredibly difficult group stage.
Should they indeed enter the second-tier grouping, they would avoid the likes of Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan and Porto. Instead, they will face off against teams from the third pot which include Lazio, Red Bull Salzburg and Crvena Zvezda.
The Europa League had given both Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta the chance to rotate the Arsenal side during their tenure, blood youngsters and keep the players on the fringes ready for senior action should they be called upon.
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However, with qualification for the Champions League secured for the first time in more than half a decade, that benefit looked to have gone out the window. Yet, with potentially four games against teams from pots three and four, Arteta could, at least for the first half of the season, be granted the ability to rotate to some degree and give new signings the chance for more minutes.
That said, the hope is that Arsenal will be better prepared for the four competitions they’re in next season and not exit at the earlier rounds like they did during 2022/23. This will be achieved through their work in the transfer market so that if the likes of William Saliba, Eddie Nketiah, Thomas Partey or Oleksandr Zinchenko are unavailable that the players coming in are of competitive quality and suit the role that Mikel Arteta has determined.
Still, it remains clear that being in the second-tier pot over the third is hugely beneficial regardless of the summer spending. Potentially, it can be helpful in securing the top spot in the group which gives the Gunners a better chance of an easier Round-of-16 opponent who finished second in their group.
The further Arsenal go in the top-tier European tournament, the more money they earn which has been a huge miss these past years as the money in the Europa League is significantly less.
The Gunners need to establish themselves again at Europe’s top table and with the likes of RB Leipzig, Villarreal and AC Milan reaching the Champions League semi-finals, it demonstrates the potential of how far good sides can go without necessarily being the Man City's and Real Madrid's of the footballing world.
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