Having spent most of the past decade in a flawed attempt to replicate the Barcelona model, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal finally almost emulated the Catalan giants here in the worst possible way.
With a 4-1 first-leg advantage, Arsenal fell two goals behind and were facing the very serious threat of following Barcelona out of European competition just 48 hours after Roma had produced one of the great comebacks from an identical first-leg position.
A truly dreadful midfield performance had allowed CSKA Moscow to pile on the pressure but, with what was their first shot on target in the match, Danny Welbeck scored a precious away goal in the 75th minute to seal Arsenal’s path to the Europa League semi-finals, and also calm desperately frayed nerves.
“CSKA made my heart beat much quicker than I expected,” Wenger later admitted.
Aaron Ramsey did add another in added time to equalise on the night, but a final 6-3 aggregate scoreline was a long way from the full story. Arsenal - and perhaps even Wenger - were on the brink for a significant part of this match and it was only when they switched to a five-man defence after 69 minutes that they looked likely to withstand CSKA’s attacks.
After a night of dramatic turnarounds in the other Europa League quarter-finals, Arsenal do now take their place with favourites Atletico Madrid, Marseille and RB Salzburg in Friday’s semi-final draw.
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CSKA (3-5-2): Igor Akinfeev; Aleksei Berezutski, Vasili Berezutski, Sergei Ignashevich; Konstantin Kuchaev, Alan Dzagoev, Bibras Natkho, Aleksandr Golovin, Kirill Nababkin; Ahmed Musa, Pontus Wenbloom.
Arsenal (4-2-3-1): Petr Cech; Hector Bellerin, Shkodran Mustafi, Laurent Koscielny, Nacho Monreal; Aaron Ramsey, Mohamed Elneny; Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere, Mesut Ozil; Alexandre Lacazette.
11/03/18 Arsenal 3-0 Warford (Premier League)
01/04/18 Arsenal 3-0 Stoke City (Premier League)
08/04/18 Arsenal 3-2 Southampton (Premier League)
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