The Numbers Game: Europe's top defence faces best attack as Arsenal host Bayern

Three teams came through the first four matchdays of the 2025-26 Champions League with maximum points, and two of them will do battle on Wednesday.

Along with Inter, Arsenal and Bayern have perfect records in Europe this campaign, with the former boasting the continent's best defence and the latter having the most fearsome attack.

So if any game can be described as a meeting between an immovable object and an unstoppable force, it is this one.

With the Gunners coming off the back of a comprehensive derby win over Tottenham and their old adversary Harry Kane returning to north London, this game promises to be absorbing viewing.

Here, we preview the match using the best Opta insights.

What's expected? 

The Opta supercomputer makes Arsenal favourites for this match, with Mikel Arteta's side coming out on top in 43.8% of pre-match simulations.

Bayern are assigned a 30.8% chance of victory, while 25.4% of projections saw the points shared.

Arsenal are also the supercomputer's favourites to win the Champions League this season, with a 23% probability. Bayern are second-favourites at 16%.

And the predictive model also backs the Gunners to top the league-phase standings with a 42.5% chance. Bayern are again second-favourites with a 33.7% probability.

But history is against Arsenal, who have endured plenty of disappointment against Bayern in the past.

These sides have faced off on 14 previous occasions in the Champions League, the most times Arsenal have faced any opponent in the competition. 

The Gunners are winless across the last five of those meetings since a 2-0 win in October 2015 (one draw, four losses), with three of their four defeats in that time coming via 5-1 scorelines.

Most recently, Bayern eliminated Arsenal at the quarter-final stage of the 2023-24 Champions League, with Joshua Kimmich scoring the only goal in the second leg as the Bundesliga giants triumphed 3-2 on aggregate. 

This will be the fifth time Bayern have faced Arsenal in the group or league phase of the Champions League, also facing them in 2000-01 (second group stage) and 2015-16. The Bavarians have lost just one of those matches, that aforementioned 2-0 defeat in 2015.

Can rock-solid Arsenal defence be breached?

Arsenal turned on the style in the Premier League on Sunday, with Eberechi Eze scoring the first-ever hat-trick in a north London derby in the competition as they trounced Tottenham 4-1.

Arteta's side fired off 17 shots to Spurs' three and won the expected goals (xG) battle by 1.9 to 0.1, beating their neighbours by three goals in the Premier League for the sixth time (first since November 2012, 5-2).

But in the Champions League this season, it has all been about the Gunners' defence.

Arsenal are the only team yet to concede a goal in the Champions League this campaign, while they are also the best team in the tournament both for expected goals against (1.9 xGA) and shots on target faced (seven).

Liverpool (31), Manchester City, Inter (both 32), Paris Saint-Germain (34), Chelsea (36) and Villarreal (37) have all allowed their opponents fewer shots than Arsenal, but the average shot the Gunners have faced has had an expected goals (xG) value of just 0.05.

Arsenal are also one of just four teams that have not fallen behind at any point in the Champions League this season, along with Inter, Bayern and Man City.

The hosts will again be without Gabriel Magalhaes after he suffered a thigh injury while on international duty, but Piero Hincapie impressed when filling in for the Brazilian against Spurs, recovering possession five times and winning two aerial duels on his first Premier League start. 

Kane leads irresistible Bayern attack

While Arsenal boast the best defensive record in the Champions League, Bayern have the most fearsome attack.

Vincent Kompany's team ranked joint-first for goals (14 – level with PSG) and led the way for xG (12.3) across the opening four matchdays of the tournament.

Bayern also led for more total minutes than any other team over those four matchdays, having been in front for 345 minutes and 49 seconds, or 89% of their total gametime. 

And they hit the woodwork more often than anyone else in their opening four matches, doing so seven times. 

That is the joint-most a team have hit the woodwork in their first four games of a Champions League campaign on record (since 2003-04), along with Barcelona in 2010-11 and Real Madrid in 2018-19.

In all competitions, Bayern have scored 64 goals in just 18 matches this season, outscoring every other team from Europe's top five leagues and also racking up the highest xG total (52.5).

They thumped Freiburg 6-2 on Saturday to ensure they topped the Bundesliga for a 43rd consecutive matchday, equalling their own record set between 1972 and 1973. Michael Olise was the star of the show with two goals and three assists, the first instance of any player recording five goal involvements in one of Europe's top five leagues this season.

Kane was also on target in that match, and he will return to one of his favourite hunting grounds on Wednesday.

The Tottenham icon has 15 goals in 21 career appearances against Arsenal, including six goals in 10 games against them at the Emirates Stadium – the most of any visiting player at the ground.

PLAYERS TO WATCH 

Arsenal – Eberechi Eze

On Sunday, Eze became just the fourth player to score a hat-trick in the north London derby, after Ted Drake (for Arsenal, October 1934), Terry Dyson (for Spurs, August 1961) and Alan Sunderland (for Arsenal, December 1978). 

He led all players on the pitch in that game for shots (six), shots on target (four) and shots from inside the area (five), as well as completing all three of his attempted dribbles.

The England international will now be gunning for his first Champions League goal, having only managed two shots – neither of which hit the target – in four games in the competition.

Bayern Munich – Joshua Kimmich

Kimmich made his 100th Champions League appearance as Bayern won 2-1 against PSG on matchday four.

Of the 53 players to make 100 or more appearances in the competition (since 1992-93), the Germany midfielder has the highest win percentage (71%, 71 wins in 100 games).