Right so Bukayo Saka is out here doing the thing every fan does when they're feeling themselves a little bit. Pointing at the easier opponent in the draw like "yeah, we'll have that one please." And honestly? Fair enough. Absolutely fair enough.
The fact that Arsenal are even in a position where Saka is being asked which finalist they'd prefer to face in the Champions League final tells you everything about how far this club has come. A few years ago the question would have been "do you think you can make it out of the group stage" and now we're talking about preferred final opponents. Mad when you think about it.
But here's where it gets interesting. The optics of it. Because the second a player hints they'd rather face one team over another, you've basically handed the other team a bulletin board moment. Bayern Munich reading that in the dressing room before the second leg is going to have them absolutely bouncing. Feels a little bit like Rocky Balboa calling out Clubber Lang before he was actually ready. We saw how that ended first time round.
Now the honest truth is Arsenal genuinely have a case to make the final. This squad has matured, they defend better than they have in years, and when they're on it going forward they can hurt literally anyone in Europe. That's not blind optimism, that's just watching them this season.
But the bottling thing hasn't fully gone away yet has it. There's still that little voice in the back of every Arsenal fan's head that remembers what happened when the pressure really came on in the league last season. And the season before. The Champions League is a different animal entirely and they haven't fully proved themselves at this level yet.
Saka saying the quiet part out loud is either brilliant confidence or the kind of thing that gets clipped and played on a loop in someone else's training ground. Probably both.
Either way it's box office and we're all here for it.
Let me know your thoughts.