Arsenal face a tricky start to their quest to go one better in this year's Europa League when they travel to Eintracht Frankfurt.The Gunners came up short in the final in May as an Eden Hazard-inspired Chelsea put their London rivals to the sword 4-1 in the Azerbaijani capital Baku.
Having reached the semi-finals the year before in the Europa League, Unai Emery's men start as one of the favourites for the tournament but face a tricky opening match in Germany as the top two sides in Group F go head-to-head.
Frankfurt enjoyed their best-ever run in Europe last season as they reached the Europa League semi-finals, only missing out on a meeting with Arsenal in the final via a penalty shootout loss to Chelsea.
They lost two of the stars of that campaign - Luka Jovic and Sebastian Haller - during the summer but Adi Htter's men have reinvested the majority of the cash they received for the attacking duo in the squad.
They signed the likes of Djibril Sow, Kevin Trapp and Bas Dost permanently during the summer while bringing in forward Andre Silva on loan from AC Milan.
The new-look Eagles have made a steady start to the season, cruising through Europa League qualifying and winning two out of four matches in the Bundesliga, although they did come unstuck at Augsburg at the weekend, losing 2-1 in Bavaria.
Arsenal also head into this fixture on the back of a bad result after throwing away a two-goal lead at Watford on Sunday.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's brace put the Gunners 2-0 up at the break but they ended up being lucky to take a share of the spoils away from Vicarage Road as the Hornets battled back to a 2-2 draw.
Whether they had won at the weekend or not, Emery was always likely to rotate his squad for Thursday's group stage encounter with Damien Martinez set to replace Bernd Leno in goal.
There could also be a first outing in nine months for Rob Holding after his recovery from a serious knee injury, while Calum Chambers, Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka could be handed starts.
Arsenal are still without Hector Bellerin, Kieran Tierney and Alexandre Lacazette through injury, while Konstantinos Mavropanos is working his way back to full fitness.