Arsenal have a crucial advantage going into their Champions League game against Bayern Munich

Mikel Arteta has been given a huge boost ahead of Arsenal's Champions League clash with Bayern Munich this evening.

The Gunners face arguably their toughest fixture of the season so far when they take on the Bundesliga champions at the Allianz Arena. Arsenal, who reached the final of the competition last term, have kicked off their European campaign with wins over Napoli and Lille in the league phase, though Vincent Kompany’s men should provide a far tougher test.

Yet, they will be buoyed heading into the fixture by the fact Bayern will be without their talisman Michael Olise. The French winger, who has been playing at a world-class level over the past two seasons, is suspended following his sending off in their last Champions League fixture against Viking.

The German giants found themselves 2-0 down at half-time last week but recovered to clinch a 3-3 draw. Their night took another late twist when Olise was booked for a cynical pull of the shirt, before earning himself a second yellow card for throwing the ball in the face of an opposition player.

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Perhaps Kompany was already looking ahead to the following week’s fixture against the English champions when he described Olise’s actions as "super dumb". The Bayern boss added: "You can see in [Olise's] eyes that he's sorry about it and that he regrets letting the team down."

Olise, who scored in the Bundesliga at the weekend, has continued his remarkable form from last season, managing an impressive nine goals and five assists in ten games so far this term. The former Crystal Palace man's absence will be a blow to Bayern’s free-flowing attack, with Arsenal having one less problem to think about as they look to contain the likes of Harry Kane, Luis Diaz and Lennart Karl, who scored when the two sides met last year.

Arteta played coy when asked whether he was aware of Olise’s red card in his post-match press conference following last Tuesday’s win over Lille. The Spaniard said: "I think the beautiful challenge will be Nottingham Forest away, and we’ve experienced that over the last few years. We’ll make sure we’re ready for that one first."

Arsenal went on to secure a narrow 1-0 win at Forest on Sunday. And Arteta will be well aware that his defence, no matter how impressive they’ve been in recent times, have dodged a bullet in not coming up against Olise, who is in contention to win this month’s Ballon d’Or.

The Gunners met Bayern last year in the group phase of the competition, securing a deserved 3-1 win at the Emirates Stadium as Jurrien Timber, Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli all got on the scoresheet. They will go into this fixture confident they can win again, having won all 14 of their last league-phase matches in the competition, dating back to November 2024.