Tomorrow at 11am GMT, someone in Nyon pulls a ball out of a pot and finds out they have been drawn against Arsenal. That is the only way I can frame this draw, because it is the only framing that is accurate. We finished first. We went eight from eight. We beat Bayern Munich, Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid along the way, scoring 23 goals and conceding just four in the process. Whoever is on the receiving end of that draw tomorrow has a problem, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, that problem belongs entirely to someone else.

Arsenal completed the Champions League league phase with eight wins from eight matches, topping the 36-team table and becoming the first side in the history of the competition to finish the league phase with a perfect record. For those keeping count at home, that includes Liverpool, who had a brilliant league phase of their own and still could not do what we did. As the number one finisher, Arsenal are guaranteed the second leg at home not just in the round of 16, but in the quarterfinals and semifinals too, should we get that far. We have earned every structural advantage this competition offers, and tomorrow we find out exactly who we get to use them against. So who comes to the Emirates first?

Because of how the bracket works, Arsenal can only be drawn against one of two sides: Atalanta or Bayer Leverkusen. Both came through the knockout phase playoffs. Here is the honest picture of each.

Atalanta finished the league phase in 15th place with 13 points, a record of four wins, one draw and three defeats. Their campaign was inconsistent from the start. They then met Borussia Dortmund in the playoffs, losing the first leg 2-0 in Germany before turning it around at home. Lazar Samardzic sealed Atalanta's progress with the last kick of the game in Bergamo, converting a late penalty to complete a 4-3 aggregate victory. That comeback tells you something about Atalanta under Gian Piero Gasperini.

They are hard to kill, they press aggressively, they use their physicality and they will not accept a tie is over until the final whistle. Gianluca Scamacca leads the line and is a genuine threat in the air. A side that comes from two goals down to beat Dortmund in a playoff is not one to treat lightly. But here is the reality. A team that finished 15th in the league phase, that needed a stoppage-time penalty to survive the first knockout round, is objectively not among the elite of this competition. We beat Atletico 4-0 at home in the league phase. We won 3-1 at Inter. Atalanta's ceiling in this tournament this season sits well below either of those sides.

This is the more interesting story. The summer saw Xabi Alonso leave for Real Madrid and Florian Wirtz join Liverpool in a deal reported at over £100 million, a Bundesliga record fee. Granit Xhaka also departed, joining Sunderland, while Jonathan Tah signed for Bayern Munich. The spine of the invincible title-winning squad was dismantled in one window. What followed was chaos. Erik ten Hag was appointed as Alonso's replacement but was sacked after just three competitive matches in charge, having lost the Bundesliga opener to Hoffenheim and then blown a two-goal lead against ten-man Werder Bremen.

Kasper Hjulmand was brought in as his replacement in September 2025. Hjulmand has steadied things. Leverkusen won 2-0 at Manchester City in the league phase and beat Villarreal 3-0 to confirm their playoff place, with Hjulmand unbeaten in five Champions League matches after taking over. They then saw off Olympiacos 2-0 on aggregate in the playoffs, keeping a clean sheet across both legs.

So this is not a team in freefall, but it is also not the Leverkusen of two years ago. The identity that Alonso built, the system, the spirit, the squad cohesion, all of it had to be rebuilt from scratch in four months. Patrik Schick, when fit, remains dangerous. Alejandro Grimaldo provides quality from left wing-back. But this is a work in progress, and the round of 16 at the Emirates is a brutal place to still be finding yourself.

Eight games, eight wins, 23 goals scored, four conceded. We have gone through an entire European league phase without dropping a single point, beating Bayern Munich, Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid along the way, and doing it with a consistency and ruthlessness that no club in the history of this competition has managed before us. We have not edged past anyone in this competition, we have beaten them, and in most cases we have beaten them convincingly.

Atletico Madrid came to the Emirates and left humiliated. We went to Inter Milan's San Siro, one of the most hostile atmospheres in European football, and won 3-1. We have not had a single night in this competition where we looked vulnerable, uncertain or beatable. The squad Arteta has built is the deepest I have seen at this club in the European era. When Saka was unavailable, others stepped up. When Merino went down with his foot injury, the system absorbed it. Gabriel and Saliba at the back have been immovable, conceding just four goals across eight matches. Martin Odegaard is running the tempo of games with a composure that belongs on the biggest stages.

This is a collective, and collectives are far harder to beat than sides built around individual brilliance. Whether it is Atalanta's physicality or Leverkusen's transitional chaos that greets us in the round of 16, the answer from this Arsenal side should be the same: control the game, suffocate the opponent, and make the Emirates count.