Renée Slegers held a press conference before Arsenal Women's trip to Barcelona. "It should be a really nice atmosphere," she said of Thursday's Champions League game at Camp Nou, which kicks off at 17:45 GMT. That's the right way to frame it.
It's also the first real test of Arsenal's European form. They go into match four unbeaten and fifth in the table on seven points, after wins over HB Køge and Benfica at Meadow Park and a 2-2 draw at Paris FC. Barcelona lead the league phase with a perfect record, so a draw at Camp Nou would be a good result on its own terms. Arsenal beat Barcelona 1-0 in the 2025 final in Lisbon, and Pere Romeu said this week that Thursday would be a different game from that one.
Romeu has problems of his own. As of Tuesday the Barcelona coach was without Laia Aleixandri, Kika Nazareth and Vicky Lopez through injury, and Irene Paredes was a doubt. About 23,000 tickets had been sold by the same day. Arsenal travel with Alessia Russo, who scored a hat-trick against Benfica on 28 October, so Barcelona's defence has one obvious job.
Arsenal's most recent game was Sunday's 2-1 win at Anfield, where Russo's two goals both came from the right, and Slegers has since explained that Liverpool's press "wanted to have us on our left side, so we wanted to come out the opposite side".
Russo's week has also brought company on the awards front, because David Raya has joined her in the 2026 FIFPRO World 11 on the men's side. Raya was shortlisted alongside Thibaut Courtois and Emi Martinez, and Unai Simon, who beat him to the Yashin Trophy, wasn't among the finalists. A third straight Golden Glove in a title-winning season is a strong case, and the players' vote has backed it. Andrea Berta has been named Best Executive at the Golden Awards and will collect it in Turin next month. Berta's award looks early to me.
Over to the men's team, Martin Zubimendi has been short of minutes. He's had 100 Premier League minutes across Arsenal's opening ten matches and an ankle problem at the wrong time, while Bruno Guimaraes has arrived and Mikel Merino is fit again. Atletico courted him at Real Sociedad too. Chelsea joining the race for an Arsenal midfielder is harder to credit while that midfielder has no name attached. Zubimendi is under contract until 2030 and Mikel Arteta dismissed talk of an exit late in the summer window, so a mid-season sale by the league leaders would need more behind it than this.
In the academy, Khari Ranson has joined Billericay on a short-term loan and nine young players have been called up for international duty.
Arsenal Women are back at the Emirates on Sunday against London City Lionesses, then host OL Lyonnes in the Champions League on Thursday 19 November.
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