LONDON – Arsenal set up a Champions League quarter-final against holders Real Madrid with a 9-3 aggregate win over PSV Eindhoven after a 2-2 draw in the second leg of their last-16 clash on Wednesday.
Progress was already a formality for the London club after their stunning 7-1 victory in the Netherlands last week and when Oleksandr Zinchenko blasted them ahead in the fifth minute, PSV would have feared another hammering.
But Ivan Perisic replied for the visitors with a sublime finish in the 18th minute to give the thousands of boisterous PSV fans something to cheer.
Declan Rice headed Arsenal back in front from Raheem Sterling’s pinpoint cross before halftime but PSV earned a deserved reward for a vastly-improved display as Couhaib Driouech calmly chipped in a 70th-minute leveller.
With the outcome long since decided, swathes of home supporters opted for an early getaway but PSV’s army of fans stayed until the end and almost saw their side snatch victory as substitute Luuk de Jong headed narrowly wide in stoppage time.
Arsenal’s easy progress was not without a cost as the impressive Sterling, given a rare start, was booked late on for a rash tackle and he will now miss the first leg of next month’s quarter-final at home to Real Madrid.
Zinchenko, one of seven changes to the Arsenal side that drew with Manchester United at the weekend, had never scored a goal in European competition but opened his account with a stunner, taking Sterling’s pass and cutting in from the right before lashing a shot past PSV keeper Walter Benitez.
That put Arsenal 8-1 ahead on aggregate and Bayern Munich’s record Champions League knockout 12-1 aggregate win over Sporting in the 2008-09 season looked to be in range.
But Arsenal did not have the appetite to chase records as they played the game largely in cruise control as they reached the quarter-finals for the second successive season having fallen to Bayern Munich last year.
“We’ve done it consistently and now we want to make the next step, which is going to be really difficult. But we are very capable of that,” Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta told reporters before knowing whether Real Madrid or Atletico Madrid were waiting for them.
“We are a club, a team that wants to be the best and wants to be competing with the best clubs in the world. And in order to do that, you have to constantly be there. And it’s very difficult. But we’ve done it for two years in a row. And we have the capacity and the ability to do it even better.” (Reuters)
