Arsenal’s entire playing squad have travelled to Budapest for the Champions League final, including the injured Ben White and a couple of youngsters.
Arsenal have shared images of their travelling squad for the Champions League final, confirming that all of the senior players will be in Budapest for the match.
Of the club’s current injury concerns, Ben White is travelling despite having no chance to feature in the match, and Jurrien Timber is also making the trip amid hopes that he may have returned to fitness just in time. Timber held his first full training session post-injury earlier this week.
Also pictured with the travelling squad are youngsters Max Dowman and Marli Salmon, who have both been with the first-team squad regularly throughout the current Champions League campaign.
Third-choice goalkeeper Tommy Setford also remains involved, and should be named on the bench. It’s normal to name three goalkeepers in the squad in UEFA competitions.
In all, 26 players are travelling to Hungary, but there are only 23 spots in the matchday squad. White will miss out through injury, and Salmon is likely to miss out as well, but at least one of the other senior players will have to be excluded too (Dowman is considered a senior player by Arsenal).
If Timber or Mikel Merino aren’t at 100% after their injury lay-offs, they would be the easy players to leave out. Otherwise, Mikel Arteta will have a decision to make.
Merino obviously played briefly against Crystal Palace at the weekend, but it remains to be seen whether he’s sharp enough for a fixture with much higher stakes.
The encouraging sign with both Timber and Merino is that they’ve both been selected for their countries’ World Cup squads, suggesting their international managers believe they’ll be ready for crucial fixtures in June at the latest.
It looks like Arteta will be able to name his first-choice player in every position except perhaps right-back, given White’s absence and strong doubts over Timber.
That’s an improvement on last season’s team to face PSG, where multiple starters were absent for the semi-final first leg including Gabriel Magalhaes, Kai Havertz, and Riccardo Calafiori, and only Calafiori returned (as a substitute) for the second.
The Gunners have also added a lot of players to the squad since then. Now is the chance to prove that they’ve done enough to change the end result.
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