To borrow a line from Mikel Arteta, it is not meant to be easy. And it was anything but on the latest anxiety-ridden, claustrophobic occasion for his Arsenal team. The club’s recent wobble has been pronounced. The loss to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final. The FA Cup exit at Southampton. The Premier League defeat against Bournemouth that has imperilled their title push. The nerves are pounding like a migraine and this was a night which was always going to be entirely outcome-based.
Hold on to the 1-0 lead from the first-leg of this quarter-final and it would be triumph – only a fourth appearance in the semi-finals of the competition. Fall short against a tidy Sporting team and ignominy was guaranteed; a deepening of the existential crisis. It is City next at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, after all.
The tie rested on a knife-edge throughout. Arsenal were tough to watch in an attacking sense, unable to penetrate and create. The statistics showed that they managed just one shot on target and, in truth, it was difficult to remember who that was from. Apparently, it was Martín Zubimendi. Leandro Trossard, who had come off the bench, hit the post with a header from a tight angle following a deep corner in the 84th minute.
It came to be a question of whether Arsenal could keep the backdoor shut. Gloriously for them, they could; the defensive resolve that has underpinned their season came to the fore when it mattered the most. There were worrying moments. Geny Catamo hit the post for Sporting just before half-time and there were other times when the visitors almost made it happen.
Not least at the very end when the substitute, João Simões, dragged a shot through a crowd and just wide. The Portuguese champions could not find a way through and, when the full-time whistle sounded, Arsenal were left to contemplate a semi-final against Atlético Madrid – the team that they humbled 4-0 here last October in the league phase of the competition.
This was not a performance to strike fear into the hearts of City, who are six points back in the title race with a game in hand. It was also striking that there were not really any wild celebrations when it was over. Perhaps, everybody was too drained. Arsenal’s difficulties in open play are a major concern. And yet would a 0-0 draw at the Etiahd not do very nicely? Arsenal continue to cling to the sense of possibility.
The trauma of what happened here against Bournemouth on Saturday framed the occasion from an Arsenal point of view and they appeared determined to put things right at the outset.
There was hard running, a maniacal desire to win the duels and lay down markers. It was ultra-intense. Sporting defended in a 5-3-2 and there was a storm for them to weather in the opening 10 minutes or so. They weathered it. Rui Borges’s team came to look polished in their 4-2-3-1 system in possession; the captain, Morten Hjulmand, caught the eye in central midfield.
Arsenal huffed and puffed. Nobody could fault the effort but the cutting edge was absent, the final action routinely frustrating. It was all too frenetic. Arsenal created nothing of clearcut note before the interval and it said plenty that one of their best moments of the first 45 minutes came when Gabriel Martinelli chased back to thwart Catamo on the counter.
It was Sporting who came to look the more threatening team in the first half. There were a few wobbly passes out of defence by Arsenal, including one from David Raya that he got away with, Pedro Gonçalves failing to capitalise before Sporting fashioned the big chance.
There were 43 minutes on the clock when Maximiliano Araújo got up the left to float over a cross and Catamo, having timed his run, cut across the ball to send it skidding against the far post.
It was not Viktor Gyökeres’s night against his former club; the centre-forward did little right with the ball and Arteta replaced him with Kai Havertz on 56 minutes. Then again, it was not a game for any of Arsenal’s forward thinkers. Arteta’s next change was met with rapturous cheers – Max Dowman for Noni Madueke, who had hurt himself in a collision. It is indicative of where Arsenal are at the moment that they invest so much hope in the 16-year-old prodigy.
At the start of the second period, Martinelli lashed a shot high while Madueke put another into the side-netting. Increasingly, it came to be about what happened at the other end. There were groans from the home crowd when Raya sent a pass into touch and gasps when Araújo almost connected with a deflected Catamo cross. Araújo wanted a penalty after a push from Cristhian Mosquera but there was nothing in it. Arteta raged so loudly at one decision that he was shown the yellow card. His team got the job done.
