Arsenal vs Shakhtar Donetsk LIVE: Champions League team news and build-up as Gabriel Jesus starts

More from Mikel Merino who spoke about Arsenal’s mentality in the build-up to tonight’s Champions League fixture.

“I think we have a pretty complete team and coaching mentality as well,” he said, “We may lack a bit of experience because we have a really young team.

“I’m lucky because I have some experience of keeping that mentality and calmness when you have that moment of truth.”

Arsenal are unbeaten in each of their last 12 European matches on home soil, winning eight and drawing four.

Mikel Arteta is still hurting due to Arsenal’s defeat at the weekend and hopes his players have to motivation to get back on track tonight.

“You have a defeat, that’s part of the game, it happens in very specific conditions as well,” he said, “Let’s move on, take that pain we still have in the tummy and use it.

“It puts a bit of perspective into the situation. Obviously we want to win in any context. The reality is that we have made that context very difficult for ourselves.

“It was very difficult already with the amount of players that we had out and the schedule and the games that we had to play, but that’s the reality.

“For that game we didn’t get away with it. We could have done and it could have been a very different narrative, but the reality is we didn’t. Another context is that we have lost one game in six months. Now we have to win again.”

Arsenal last faced Ukrainian opponents in the 2018/19 Europa League group stage, beating Vorskla Poltava 4-2 at home and 3-0 away – the latter game was Bukayo Saka’s first-team debut.

Their loss at Shakhtar in 2010 is Arsenal’s only defeat in their last seven games against teams from Ukraine (W5 D1) and the only one of the last five they have not won.

The Gunners have recorded five successive victories at home to Ukrainian visitors, scoring 14 goals.

Mikel Arteta makes two changes from the team that lost to Bournemouth on Saturday. Raheem Sterling and Mikel Merino drop out with Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus brought in.

Arsenal XI: Raya; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori; Martinelli, Rice, Partey, Trossard; Havertz, Jesus

Shakhtar XI: Riznyk; Konoplia, Bondar, Matviyenko, Pedro Henrique; Kryskiv; Zubkov, Bondarenko, Sudakov, Eguinaldo; Sikan

Ben White has cleared up confusion over whether he hates football after previously admitting he does not watch it in his downtime.

Footballers are generally presumed to be obssessed with the sport, with many admitting that they spend a lot of their time off watching wahtever game happens to be on TV.

But Arsenal defender White raised eyebrows when he conceded in past interviews that he doesn’t engage with it once he leaves the training ground. The story that he hates the sport also gained traction after he pulled out of the England squad during the 2022 World Cup for personal reasons and went home – amid rumours of a bust-up with Gareth Southgate’s assistant coach Steve Holland, which Southgate always denied.

Arsenal midfielder, Mikel Merino, says that winning the Champions League would be amazing and believes his teammates have the mentality to get over the line.

He said: “I’ve been lucky enough to win a lot of trophies in my career. I know the feeling. It’s something you can’t compare with anything else.

“Knowing what this club is about, and how big winning trophies is, winning the Champions League would be amazing. There is still a long way to go, but we have the basics and we have the mentality.”

Mikel Arteta says that his players always have the ‘desire’ to perform well when they take part in Champions League fixtures and he hopes they will feed off the atmosphere of playing in front of a home crowd.

The Gunners boss said: “The desire is always there, and we always want to play these kind of matches. We know the atmosphere is going to be really good tomorrow night so we will try to feed off that and try to win the game.”