Arteta Trusts Timber as Arsenal Targets Champions League Glory
Mikel Arteta will trust Jurrien Timber’s body – and his nerve – on the biggest night of Arsenal’s modern history.
The Dutch defender, sidelined since a groin injury in March’s win over Everton, has been declared fit to start Saturday’s Champions League final against Paris St-Germain in Budapest. For weeks, right-back had looked like the one crack in Arsenal’s armour. Arteta has decided it will not be.
Ben White’s knee ligament injury stripped Arsenal of their first-choice option on that flank. What followed was a patchwork solution: Spain centre-back Cristhian Mosquera shunted wide, midfield metronomes Martin Zubimendi and Declan Rice asked to moonlight in unfamiliar territory. It worked often enough, but it was never the long-term plan.
Now Timber is back, photographed in full training as the Premier League champions sharpen their edge for Luis Enrique’s reigning European kings. The timing could hardly be more dramatic.
Selection Boosts and No Room for Complacency
The news on Timber was not Arteta’s only boost. Noni Madueke, who limped off with a hamstring issue in the win over Crystal Palace last weekend, is also available. Another attacking weapon restored, another headache for PSG’s back line.
Any suggestion that Arsenal might treat this as a free hit, with the club’s first league title in 22 years already secured, was cut down quickly by their manager.
“No, the ambition is bigger, we have one [trophy] and we want the second one,” Arteta said, outlining the mood inside a squad that has spent two seasons learning how to live with expectation rather than shrink from it.
“That is all we have been talking about. There has to be a platform to reach bigger destinations and to aim for more.
“The team is capable because they have shown it in the last seasons [in] this competition, what we have done this season in the competition.
“I want the players to be so confident that we are going to go and do it.”
This is not a group satisfied by ending a domestic drought. They want a crown that has eluded Arsenal for generations.
PSG’s Weight of Favouritism
Across the halfway line stands a team that knows exactly what this stage feels like. PSG arrive as favourites, and with good reason. They are the defending champions, they knocked Arsenal out in last season’s semi-finals, and they carry the aura of a side accustomed to playing with a target on their back.
They are also chasing history. Victory in Budapest would make them only the second team to win back-to-back titles in the Champions League era, a feat that would place this PSG vintage alongside the competition’s great dynasties.
Arteta has no intention of playing the respectful underdog.
“They are defending the trophy and they are the champions and we are here to take that away from them,” he said, framing the final not as a celebration of PSG’s status but as an open challenge to it.
Timber’s return, Madueke’s availability, a title already banked and a shot at the biggest prize of all. Arsenal walk into Budapest with momentum, scars from last year’s exit, and a manager who has made his demand plain.
One trophy is no longer enough.
