Arsenal’s Champions League quarter-final against Bayern Munich remains on a knife edge as they go into the second-leg at the Allianz Arena level. Bukayo Saka handed Mikel Arteta’s side the lead after 12 minutes, but the lead lasted a mere six minutes.
Former Gunners youth prospect Serge Gnabry continued his hot streak of scoring in the capital before Harry Kane put the visitors in front from the spot. The ex-Tottenham Hotspur talisman came back to haunt Arsenal after Leroy Sane burst through before he was hauled down in the box.
Arteta’s substitutes proved to be the difference, as Gabriel Jesus set up Leandro Trossard for the equaliser with 14 minutes remaining. The encounter was overshadowed after Manuel Neuer brought down Saka, but Glenn Nyberg was disinterested and blown for full-time.
The hosts survived a penalty scare of their own during a bizarre turn of events in the first-half. David Raya passed to Gabriel from a goal kick, but the Brazilian picked up the ball and started play, despite Nyberg blowing the whistle when the Arsenal goalkeeper was in possession.
“At 2-1 down he risked a heavier defeat and maybe effectively going out of the competition but, instead, was rewarded with an equalising goal as Gabriel Jesus and Leandro Trossard, his two attacking substitutes, combined with the latter scoring…
“… If that was the brave then there was also the fortune. In fact there was so much to debate, so many points of contention, so many opinions after a humdinger of a game on Arsenal’s return to this stage of the Champions League for the first time in 14 years.
“The biggest of all? A strange, weird, unfathomable one as Gabriel should have conceded a second penalty as he picked the ball up inside his own area after David Raya played a goal-kick to him. Bayern protested to Swedish referee Glenn Nyberg who – astonishingly – said he could not give it as it was a “childish mistake” with Gabriel believing the kick had not been taken. Wow. That was some let-off.
“In that context Arsenal’s claims that Kane should have been sent off – rather than yellow-carded – after appearing to catch Gabriel in the throat with his elbow and their demands for a penalty of their own when Bukayo Saka collided with Manuel Neuer in injury-time can be brushed aside. They got away with one.”
“Faced with a Bayern Munich side that has fallen from grace in its domestic season but which has won this competition six times, Arsenal played for large parts of the tie with all the uncertainty and gaucheness of schoolboys who didn’t believe they belonged among the adults.
“Arsenal had conceded two goals in their last 10 games before this tie. Against Bayern, they conceded two goals in 14 minutes. Bayern are European aristocracy and instead of laughing at how frayed their robes have become, for much of the game, Arsenal bowed to them.
“They took an early lead through Bukayo Saka in the first leg of their first Champions League quarter-final for 14 years but were soon pegged back by a fine Bayern equaliser from Serge Gnabry.
“And then the salt that many had feared would be rubbed in their wounds began to sting. Harry Kane, who had scored 14 goals for Spurs in his previous 19 appearances against Arsenal and is the record scorer in north London derbies, made it 15 in 20 with a first half penalty. It was his 39th goal of the season.
“Arsenal will beware Thomas Müller’s traditional away-day, first-leg reminder to his Bayern team-mates that the opposition “have to come to the Allianz”. They have to step into a European fortress where Manchester United, Galatasaray and Lazio have succumbed this season. Bayern’s travails in the Bundesliga simply increase their determination to deliver in Europe. So the Saka moment was huge.
“The Arsenal winger had broken in from the right and was aiming to run across Neuer. He knocked the ball past the Bayern goalkeeper, but then his rising right knee went into Neuer, causing the collision. The Swedish referee, Glenn Nyberg, was well placed and adamant there had been no foul. Given Uefa’s preference for light-touch use of VAR, there was little chance of this being overturned. Yet it was one of those touch-and-go incidents where, had Nyberg awarded the penalty, VAR would not have overturned it.”
“Harry Kane even scored the penalty that made it 2-1 and put Arsenal on the brink, only for Mikel Arteta’s side to rally superbly with an exacting Leandro Trossard finish.
“This was probably the main lesson from the game, that is as important to the second leg in Munich as the aggregate score.
“It showed the value of experience at this kind of level, but also how you start to develop it.”
The North London club travel to the Allianz Arena next Wednesday as they look to silence the German crowd. Here’s how the national media reacted.
