Arsenal secured a late win over Sporting CP in what had been a mostly cagey \u2014 and sometimes tepid \u2014 first leg of their Champions League quarter-final in Lisbon.<\/p>\n
With the game seemingly drifting toward a goalless draw, substitute Kai Havertz latched onto Gabriel Martinelli\u2019s pass and coolly slotted into the net.<\/p>\n
After successive defeats \u2014 to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final and to Southampton in the FA Cup quarter-final \u2014 Mikel Arteta\u2019s side secured a morale-boosting win.<\/p>\n
Both sides hit the crossbar in the first half. Sporting\u2019s Maximiliano Araujo, bursting forward from left-back onto Ousmane Diomande\u2019s superb pass, smashed a shot that David Raya tipped onto the bar. At the other end, Noni Madueke\u2019s inswinging corner came off the Sporting bar.<\/p>\n
Arsenal did have the ball in the net just after the hour mark, thanks to a fine low shot from Martin Zubimendi, but Viktor Gyokeres was offside in the build-up and the goal was ruled out.<\/p>\n
Sporting had chances late in the game to snatch what would have been a valuable lead, but it was Arsenal who take the crucial advantage into the second leg in London on April 15.<\/p>\n
Dan Sheldon and Tim Spiers analyse the main talking points.<\/p>\n
Arteta\u2019s savvy substitutions\u2026<\/b><\/h2>\n
When Arteta brought on Kai Havertz for Martin Odegaard in the 70th minute and replaced Leandro Trossard with Gabriel Martinelli only six minutes later, he did so hoping the pair would inject some attacking quality into a match that was severely lacking in that particular commodity.<\/p>\n
It might have taken until added time for the pair to make their impact, but Martinelli\u2019s assist for Havertz\u2019s goal has turned a rather mundane team performance into a superb win for Arsenal.<\/p>\n
Martinelli, receiving possession on the left flank, cut inside and surged into the space that opened up before dinking a defence-splitting pass towards Havertz in the penalty box.<\/p>\n
Havertz controlled the ball with a deft touch of his right boot, and then slotted it past the oncoming Rui Silva with his left.<\/p>\n
It was a superb pass and a lovely finish to ensure Arsenal head into the second leg on the cusp of reaching the Champions League semi-final.<\/p>\n
How did Gyokeres perform on his return to Lisbon?<\/b><\/h2>\n
It was at Sporting CP that Viktor Gyokeres established himself as one of Europe\u2019s most prominent strikers. But, on his return to Lisbon, he was unable to showcase the brilliance to which his former club\u2019s supporters had become accustomed.<\/p>\n
In the first half alone, the 27-year-old managed just nine touches, the fewest of any player on the pitch, and lost possession four times.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/athletic\/uploads\/wp\/2026\/04\/07163854\/GettyImages-2270275022-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n Viktor Gyokeres struggled to get into the game against his former club (Clive Brunskill\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And it was Gyokeres who was offside in the build-up to Zubimendi\u2019s finish just after the hour mark, which led to VAR overruling the on-field decision to award the goal.<\/p>\n It took until the 68th minute for the Sweden international\u2019s first attempt on target: he was immediately swarmed by four Sporting CP players, and his effort was comfortably saved by goalkeeper Silva.<\/p>\n As returns go \u2014 and, granted, the service provided to him wasn\u2019t great either \u2014 it won\u2019t be remembered.<\/p>\n And Sheldon<\/em><\/p>\n Well, for a start, some attacking adventure would be welcome.<\/p>\n This was a seriously tough watch, with neither team seemingly willing to risk committing too many bodies forward for fear of leaving gaps in defence to exploit. The Gunners had more of the ball, but in the first half in particular were far too laboured with it. Time and again, good runs went ignored or the pace of a sprightly attack was slowed, allowing Sporting\u2019s defence to regroup. Set pieces were Arsenal\u2019s main threat, again especially in the first half, and Sporting rode their luck with a couple of them.<\/p>\n By the 80th minute, the combined expected goals (xG) of both sides was a paltry 0.44, reflecting a tight, give-nothing-away first leg that made you wonder if away goals had been reintroduced to the competition.<\/p>\n Arsenal will hope to have Bukayo Saka back for the return leg next week. He and Max Dowman \u2014 who had to wait until the 76th minute to enter the fray \u2014 are the creative, inventive, quick-thinking players Arsenal need to break down a stubborn Sporting defence (the young centre-back pairing of Diomande and Goncalo Inacio gave little away here) while remaining wary of Sporting\u2019s pacey threat on the break.<\/p>\n \n Max Dowman brought much-needed creativity to the pitch (Clive Brunskill\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Tim Spiers<\/em><\/p>\n Against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final and then away to Southampton in the FA Cup quarter-final, Mikel Arteta left David Raya on the bench.<\/p>\n As he had done in both domestic cup competitions this season, the Arsenal manager picked second-choice goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga.<\/p>\n But normal service resumed against Sporting CP on Tuesday night, with Raya resuming his spot in the Arsenal starting XI \u2014 and it took all of six minutes for the Spaniard to showcase his undeniable quality.<\/p>\n An unbelievable pass with the outside of his boot from Diomande split Arsenal wide open and played in Araujo, who, instead of snatching at the ball, set himself before striking it with his left foot on the edge of the Arsenal box.<\/p>\n His shot appeared to hit the crossbar directly, but the slow-motion replay showed it was in fact Raya\u2019s fingertips that pushed it onto the woodwork.<\/p>\n \n Raya makes a superb save to tip the ball onto the bar (Glyn Kirk \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It was a tremendous stop. And Raya made another in the final 10 minutes that was almost as good, diving to prevent Geny Catamo\u2019s header from squeezing in at the near post.<\/p>\n Those saves were timely reminders of exactly what Arsenal had been missing in goal during their two cup competition defeats.<\/p>\n And Sheldon<\/em><\/p>\n On what the result means:<\/strong> \u201cExtremely happy it was a big night, a big moment in the season. Especially where we\u2019re coming from, I think we had a point to prove. Yesterday I talked about identity and the things that I wanted to see on that pitch. It certainly happened that it was a shift there, and then they were a big opponent. It\u2019s very tricky, very difficult to play. That\u2019s the reason why they won 17 times in a row here. They haven\u2019t lost for a long, long time. We really had to earn it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had moments of real dominance with a lot of situations in and around the ball without creating enough threats. Sometimes (I would like us) to be a bit crisper with the movement a bit sharper with the final ball. But we took the game where we wanted.<\/p>\n \u201cBut as I said, they are a team that\u2019s extremely dangerous when they have space to run, and they have two situations when David (Raya) had to intervene in a brilliant way. And then, again, the story of the season. The finishers come in when the most important part of the game is about to happen and they made the difference for us to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n On David Raya\u2019s saves:<\/strong> \u201cHe\u2019s extraordinary, magnificent, incredible. I don\u2019t know the adjective, the right one. And with that, it\u2019s enough. We are so happy to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n On Kai Havertz\u2019s record of stepping up in the Champions League:<\/strong> \u201cHe\u2019s lived it, he\u2019s been part of something, and that\u2019s a really important thing to have in and around the team. And today he was ready. I could see from the disappointment the other day that he wanted to play immediately. And the action of the goal, from both Gabi and him is fabulous.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Saturday, April 11:<\/strong> Bournemouth (Home), Premier League, 12.30pm UK, 7.30am ET<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arsenal secured a late win over Sporting CP in what had been a mostly cagey \u2014 and sometimes tepid \u2014 first leg of their Champions League quarter-final in Lisbon. With … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787","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=1787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What needs to change for the second leg?<\/b><\/h2>\n
Sporting had won 17 matches at home in a row in all competitions, but were happy to try their luck with an occasional counter-attack or long ball over the top, both of which Arsenal coped with relatively comfortably.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/athletic\/uploads\/wp\/2026\/04\/07165831\/GettyImages-2270277250-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRaya shows what has been missing<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/athletic\/uploads\/wp\/2026\/04\/07161952\/GettyImages-2266599654-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWhat did Arteta say?<\/b><\/h2>\n
What next for Arsenal?<\/h2>\n