{"id":1018,"date":"2026-03-17T22:23:57","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T22:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/?p=1018"},"modified":"2026-03-17T22:23:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T22:23:57","slug":"arsenal-2-0-leverkusen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/?p=1018","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal 2 – 0 Leverkusen"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Arsenal set up a Champions League quarter-final against Sporting Lisbon as superb goals from Eberechi Eze and Declan Rice completed a 3-1 aggregate win over Bayer Leverkusen.<\/p>\n

The Gunners needed a late Kai Havertz penalty to salvage a 1-1 draw from the first leg but produced a dominant display at the Emirates Stadium to continue their hunt for silverware on four fronts.<\/p>\n

Eze broke the deadlock on the night in the first half when he controlled a Leandro Trossard pass and rifled home a sensational finish from outside the box for his fourth goal in seven games.<\/p>\n

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Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player<\/p>\n


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Paul Merson reacts to Eberechi Eze’s stunning opener<\/span>
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Rice added the second in similarly eye-catching style after the hour mark, cutting out a Leverkusen clearance then driving towards the edge of the box and stroking an exquisite finish into the corner.<\/p>\n

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\n \"Eberechi\n <\/div>
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\n Eberechi Eze celebrates with Declan Rice after opening the scoring
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The visitors owed it to their goalkeeper that the margin of defeat was not greater. Janis Blaswich made a total of 10 saves as Arsenal laid siege to his goal for long periods, with Gabriel, Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard among those denied.<\/p>\n

Ben White, starting only his second game since late January in place of the absent Jurrien Timber, also had a first-half effort saved at point-blank range following a goalmouth scramble.<\/p>\n

The visitors were restricted to few chances but did go close on one occasion in the closing stages, when David Raya was forced into an acrobatic, one-handed save from Christian Kofane.<\/p>\n

The victory pits Arsenal against Portuguese side Sporting, who overcame a three-goal first leg deficit to beat Bodo\/Glimt 5-3 on aggregate earlier on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

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Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player<\/p>\n


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Paul Merson reacts to Declan Rice’s brilliant second goal<\/span>
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Mikel Arteta’s now side face Manchester City in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final on the back of two invaluable victories, with their latest following Saturday’s 2-0 win over Everton in the Premier League.<\/p>\n

Their hopes of silverware continue to grow.<\/p>\n

Story of the match in stats…<\/h3>\n

When are the knockout stages?<\/h3>\n
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\"tournament<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Quarter-finals: <\/strong>April 7-8 and 14-15 Semi-finals:<\/strong> April 28-29 and May 5-6 Final:<\/strong> May 30 (Puskas Arena in Budapest, Hungary)<\/p>\n

Arsenal’s busy April schedule<\/h3>\n

April 4:<\/strong> Southampton (A), FA Cup quarter-final, kick-off 8pm<\/p>\n

April 7\/8: <\/strong>Sporting CP (A), Champions League quarter-final, kick-off TBC<\/p>\n

April 11: <\/strong>Bournemouth (H), Premier League, kick-off 12.30pm*<\/p>\n

April 14:<\/strong> Sporting CP (H), Champions League quarter-final second leg, kick-off TBC<\/p>\n

April 19:<\/strong> Manchester City (A), Premier League, kick-off 4.30pm, live on Sky Sports<\/p>\n

*subject to change<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arsenal set up a Champions League quarter-final against Sporting Lisbon as superb goals from Eberechi Eze and Declan Rice completed a 3-1 aggregate win over Bayer Leverkusen. The Gunners needed … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}