Arsenal mocked for ‘friendly fire’ tweet - would make sense if it was Newcastle United

Arsenal finished the 2022-23 season in second place in the Premier League table. While they narrowly missed out on the Premier League title, The Gunners did confirm Champions League qualification for the first time since the 2015-16 season.

In preparation for Champions League football, the club put out a comprehensive ‘everything you need to know’ explanation about the 2023-24 competition. But when tweeting the article, Arsenal’s wording certainly captured the attention of many Twitter users.

The club tweeting the phrase ‘how the tournament works’ for a competition the club competed in for 19 consecutive seasons before the recent six-year hiatus was quickly ridiculed.

One user tweeted: “We’ve been out of champions league for so long the club is teaching us how it works [crying emoji].”

Another cited the aforementioned phrase, stating: “This is crazy friendly fire.”

The format of the Champions League has not changed since Arsenal last played in the competition, so many fans will be quite familiar with how the competition works.

Newcastle United, who qualified for the Champions League for the first time in over 20 years by finishing fourth in the Premier League could be forgiven for putting such a tweet out given the format of the competition has changed since they last featured.

The Champions League format when Newcastle last competed saw the first two rounds played as group stages before the knockout stage which began with the quarter-final.

The current format has just one 32-team group stage before a straight two-legged knockout system from the last-16 phase onwards.

But the season after next will see a new Swiss league format introduced. UEFA have confirmed that the Champions League will consist of 36 teams instead of 32 in a ‘Swiss league’ format from the 2024-25 campaign.

This means the eight groups of four teams will be scrapped in favour of a giant 36 team league limited to just eight games. The top eight teams in the giant group go through to the last-16 while those ranked 9th to 24th will enter a two-legged play-off.

The winners of the play-off will progress to the last-16 while the losing sides drop into the Europa League. Those who finish 25th and below are eliminated.