Arsenal Champions League hopes dealt a crushing blow, but Gunners ‘escape’ UEFA punishment

· Football365

Arsenal are up against it in the Champions League after a damning verdict from the supercomputer amid their travel chaos.

Arsenal , Liverpool, Manchester City and Aston Villa have all been dealt crushing and very real Champions League blows by our old friend the Supercomputer.

But there’s some better news for the Gunners, who have escaped punishment from UEFA via the crafty ruse of… not breaking any rules.

Erling Haaland , meanwhile, is absolutely furious.

OK, Supercomputer

We are absolutely delighted to reveal that supercomputers are still very much a thing in big 2026/27. And even better, that they are still incredibly janky.

And also that, yes, in our head when we hear ‘supercomputer’ we still think of a huge room full of huge cabinet-sized bit of computing equipment with all knobs and lights and buttons on them and things whirring and whirling about as serious men in white coats with clipboards wander around with emotionless expressions studying dot-matrix printouts that come spewing out of one of the cabinets that say things like ‘DUNNO, MATE, ARSENAL MAYBE?’

And also that there is a Bertha-style large piece of industrial machinery in the room for some reason.

We know that’s not what a supercomputer actually is. Just as The Sun know that you don’t actually need anything that could be deemed a ‘supercomputer’ in the year of someone’s lord 2026 to chuck the 36 Champions League teams into a semi-coherent finishing order.

What’s most exciting about this latest effort is that it hasn’t even bothered with the semi-coherent part.

Real Madrid finish top of the pile and you know what? Fair enough. But we reckon we could genuinely give you 20 guesses for the unbeaten side that finishes second before you landed on Galatasaray, for it is they. Real Betis are fourth.

The highest-ranked English team, and only one to make it straight through to the last 16 (bearing in mind five English teams including fcking Spurs did that last season)? Manchester United.

Arsenal? Ninth. Liverpool are 13th. Manchester City and Aston Villa scrape into the play-off round in 21st and 22nd.

The Sun, instead of dismissing this out of hand, have instead got very excited indeed. ALL CAPS excited.

> A simulation of the new-look league phase run by British Gambler has the Gunners MISSING OUT on automatic qualification.

How long can we call it the ‘new-look league phase’, by the way? It’s on it’s third season now. It’s lasted longer than most Prime Ministers.

> It’s predicted the North Londoners will finish NINTH in the table and miss out on automatic qualification by a single point.

> The supercomputer stunningly has Manchester United finishing ABOVE Arsenal in sixth place.

> That’s despite the Red Devils not having played in Europe’s elite club competition in THREE SEASONS.

> The supercomputer’s prediction of Arsenal finishing in the play-off spots is truly stunning given that Mikel Arteta‘s side won ALL EIGHT of their league phase games last season.

Is it stunning? Is it truly stunning? Or is it maybe a load of old BOLLOCKS? Have you thought about perhaps turning the supercomputer OFF and ON again?

Five consecutive paras featuring ALL CAPS revelations would be a bit much even for a story real things that had happened, lads, instead of MADE-UP ones that HAVEN’T.

You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry

Textbook work from the Daily Mirror here.

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