Arsenal have never won the Champions League. Their manager wanted that fact right in front of his players before Tuesday’s league-phase meeting with Lille at the Emirates.

“We know how tough it is,” Mikel Arteta told reporters on Monday. “It has never been done in the history of our club so we have to realise that.”

The remarks landed four and a half months after Arsenal lost the 2025-26 Champions League final to Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest. Kai Havertz scored inside five minutes at the Puskás Aréna before Ousmane Dembélé equalised from the penalty spot, and Gabriel Magalhães was the man whose spot-kick was saved as PSG won the shoot-out 4-3.

Returning to that stage is not something Arteta is prepared to assume.

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“You have to earn the right to get in that position again,” he said.

That line was delivered after Arsenal had opened their 2026-27 European campaign with a 1-0 win at Napoli on 9 September, where Martin Ødegaard broke a stalemate from range in the 75th minute. The response to Arteta’s cold tone came on the pitch at the Emirates the following night.

Lille were kept at arm’s length until the hour mark, when the gates opened. Jurriën Timber scored on 64 minutes, Eberechi Eze added a second three minutes later, and Bukayo Saka made it 3-0 by the 71st. Two wins, two clean sheets, no goals conceded in the league phase so far.

Praise for Davide Ancelotti

For all the measured tone about his own club, Arteta was fulsome about Lille head coach Davide Ancelotti, the Italian in his first season in charge in Ligue 1.

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“What Davide has done is, I think, remarkable,” Arteta said. “You can just see the way that they are competing and playing and the problems that they have caused to big teams.”

Hincapié and Zubimendi hurt in training

Tuesday’s clean sheet was managed without four senior players. Arsenal’s match preview confirmed Piero Hincapié and Martin Zubimendi had both suffered ankle injuries in training after the weekend win over Leeds. Christos Tzolis was out with a hamstring issue from international duty, and William Saliba was on light training only with a back problem.

Arteta’s grounded line sits oddly against his own trajectory at the club. He signed a new contract through 2030 on 7 October, a week before the Lille fixture.

Arsenal’s next league-phase test is a trip to Bayern Munich on Wednesday 21 October, with kick-off at 9pm local time.

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