Unimaginative Arsenal scrape into ‘historic’ consecutive Champions League semis
Teenager Max Dowman (second left) came on as a second-half substitute as Arsenal crept into the European Cup semi-finals after their goalless draw with Sporting - Hannah McKay/Reuters History was made by Mikel Arteta’s players, although whether anyone ever returns to the page to relive this night’s action is another matter – certainly for now there is no time for looking back. This team rolls on to the defining game of this Arsenal season – and many others – on Sunday, having reached the Champions League semi-finals in two successive seasons. Never before, in the august European history of this club, has that been achieved and Arteta finally could not help but make the point as emphatically as he felt necessary.
That was at the end of his press conference when, in exasperation at being asked about the team’s recent form, he embarked on an involved point about how little credit his players had been accorded. Had the Amazon Prime series been made about Arsenal this season he suggested “people would think we were in the bottom three”. It was his way of saying he does not agree with the scepticism directed at Arsenal in recent days .
While Tottenham Hotspur are in the Premier League bottom three, Arsenal are in a title showdown with Manchester City on Sunday and then will face Atlético Madrid in two weeks’ time over two legs in the semi-final. Only one Arsenal team has ever gone further, 20 years ago, when Arsène Wenger’s side were defeated by the first great Barcelona team of the 2000s in the Champions League final in Paris. That turned out to be the high watermark of the Wenger era and it was downhill from there although the gradient of decline was relatively gentle for many years.
Their successors did not thunder through the gate into the Champions League final four on this night. Once again Sporting CP proved themselves to be resilient opposition without the ultimate power to break down Arsenal. Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal head coach, has led the club to another European semi-final - Stuart MacFarlane/Getty Images In the other semi-final the winner of Paris St-Germain and Bayern Munich will be the favourite for the final in Budapest on May 30, but first comes Atlético.
Arsenal warmed up for the task of facing Diego Simeone’s great side of pressing devotees with a performance at times so conservative that it was hard to say it ever felt like a cup tie. Both teams had one shot on target apiece, both struck the post – and no neutral was sad when it was over. There will have to be a lot more invention from Arsenal to win at the Etihad than they deployed to fight Sporting to a standstill.
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