Gary Lineker Questions Arsenal’s Champions League Potential Amid Barcelona’s Rise
Gary Lineker knows what it looks like when a team is truly built for Europe. He has watched Arsenal grow into a serious Champions League force over the last three seasons, watched them climb step by step, right up to last season’s final. He has also watched them fall at the last hurdle.
And he still isn’t convinced they have enough stardust to finish the job.
Arsenal’s rise – and the PSG shadow
Arsenal’s European trajectory has been clear. Three seasons of steady progress, capped by a run to last season’s final, where they ran into a ruthless PSG side that is fast becoming the defining powerhouse of this era.
PSG have lifted the Champions League in back-to-back seasons. They carry the aura, the experience, the weight of expectation. Arsenal, by contrast, carry something different: hunger, momentum, and the scar tissue of a painful defeat.
If the draw throws them together again in the knockout rounds, the storyline writes itself. Arsenal will want revenge. They have the structure, the coach, and the collective quality to trouble anyone. On paper, they are one of the contenders to finally break PSG’s grip on the trophy.
Lineker doesn’t dispute that. He just thinks there’s a ceiling.
Lineker’s verdict: quality, yes – but not enough “superstars”
Speaking to Mirror Football, Lineker put his finger on the one area where he believes Arsenal still fall short.
“Arsenal will be one of the favourites,” he said, “but I don't think overall they've got quite the superstars that some of the other big guns in Europe have.”
It’s a blunt assessment, and it cuts to the heart of the modern Champions League. Tactics, structure, and cohesion matter. So do big moments, and the players who bend them to their will. Lineker sees Arsenal as a side packed with high-level performers, but not quite stocked with the global headliners who routinely decide semi-finals and finals.
That’s the gap he keeps coming back to. Not coaching. Not system. Not belief. Star power.
Barcelona enter the frame
Lineker didn’t stop at Arsenal. He also pointed towards another European giant he expects to re-emerge as a serious threat.
“I do think Barcelona might be quite tasty and take some beating this season now they've got Rodri in there as well in that crucial position.”
That one line tells its own story. In his eyes, Barcelona have addressed a key area with a world-class operator in midfield, and that single addition shifts their European profile. The spine looks stronger. The ceiling looks higher.
While PSG remain the benchmark and Arsenal one of the main pretenders to the throne, Lineker clearly sees Barcelona as a team ready to crash the party again.
Arsenal’s ambition vs Europe’s elite
Inside the Emirates, the message will be very different. Arsenal have improved year on year in the Champions League. They have gone from hopeful participants to genuine finalists. This season, the expectation is simple: go one step further.
The path will not be gentle. PSG still loom as the team to beat. Barcelona, with Rodri anchoring their midfield, now sit in the cluster of sides ready to mount a serious challenge. Other heavyweights across the continent will fancy their chances too.
Arsenal, though, enter this campaign with something they have not had in years: real European stature. They are no longer the plucky project or the promising outsider. They are one of the favourites, just as Lineker acknowledged.
Yet his warning hangs over them. In a competition so often decided by one flash of individual brilliance, will Arsenal’s collective strength be enough when measured against squads stacked with global superstars?
This season will give a definitive answer.
