{"id":307,"date":"2026-02-27T13:08:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/?p=307"},"modified":"2026-02-27T13:08:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:08:51","slug":"martin-keown-reacts-to-champions-league-draw-video-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/?p=307","title":{"rendered":"Martin Keown reacts to Champions League draw | Video | News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Martin Keown believes we\u2019re in for a tough test against Bayer Leverkusen in our Champions League Round of 16 tie, but expects the home advantage in the second leg to be key.<\/p>\n

We won all eight of our league phase matches in this season\u2019s competition, meaning we\u2019ll play at home in the second leg of all of our knockout ties, starting with our clash with the 2024 Bundesliga winners.<\/p>\n

\u201cArsenal are becoming quite formidable now in Europe, one of the big heavyweights,\u201d Martin said after the draw, \u201cthey were out of the competition for six years or so, three years back in now.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuarter-final, semi-final (the last two seasons), hopefully this year you can go that one step further. But you can\u2019t look beyond Bayer Leverkusen in the next round, you see Inter Milan go out in the manner that they did (to Bodo\/Glimt). <\/p>\n

\u201cArsenal will be confident, they\u2019re in really good form right now, but they won\u2019t be complacent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n

Eight out of eight: Champions League history made <\/span>
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Our opponents finished 16th in the league phase, with the highlight of the first half of their European season being a 2-0 win away to Manchester City in November.<\/p>\n

In February\u2019s playoff round, Leverkusen beat Greek side Olympiacos 2-0 on aggregate to secure their place in the Round of 16.<\/p>\n

Martin expects the German side to provide a strong test as we look to reach the quarter-finals for the third year running.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it will be a tough game, we\u2019ve seen them do very well against other English teams in the Champions League, some good wins away from home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey won\u2019t be taken lightly. Arsenal will really go after them, and I think this year (having) the second leg at home, I think that’s really strong from Arsenal\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot looking beyond Bayer Leverkusen, but to play them second, the second game at home, I think it\u2019s a strong advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as learning our Round of 16 opponents, Friday\u2019s draw also mapped out our potential route to this season\u2019s final in Budapest.<\/p>\n

If we were to beat Leverkusen, we\u2019d then face either Bodo\/Glimt or Sporting CP in the quarter-finals, before taking on one of Newcastle United, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid or Tottenham in the last four.<\/p>\n

While Martin feels we have the quality to go on such a run, he feels our focus should be on getting past Bayer Leverkusen first.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course you want to go to the final, nobody\u2019s frightened of that. But you\u2019ve got to take one step at a time, be beyond professional.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can dream, and you can say that the draw looks kind, but when you see some of the teams in there, Bodo\/Glimt, who knocked out Inter Milan, former winners of the competition, you\u2019ve got Barcelona, it\u2019s difficult wherever you look.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo just concentrate on what you need to do, that\u2019s the next game (against) Bayer Leverkusen, and we go from there.”<\/p>\n

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\n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n

Bayer Leverkusen drawn in Champions League last 16 <\/span>
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Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Martin Keown believes we\u2019re in for a tough test against Bayer Leverkusen in our Champions League Round of 16 tie, but expects the home advantage in the second leg to … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","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\/307","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=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}