https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROAiDiUGAEg
We marched into the Champions League quarter-finals after beating PSV Eindhoven 9-3 on aggregate, following a 2-2 draw in the second leg in north London.
With the damage done the week before, Oleksandr Zinchenko opened the scoring just six minutes in, but we saw that wiped out by Ivan Perisic 12 minutes afterwards. However Declan Rice netted for the second successive game to hand us the half-time advantage.
The match was again levelled up when Couhaib Driouech lifted the ball over David Raya on 70 minutes to salvage some pride for the visitors, but we had already done more than enough to clinch successive last-eight appearances in the competition for the first time since 2010.
Our 7-1 success in Eindhoven meant that our spot in the last eight was all-but certain heading into this game, but we showed early on that we still wanted to grab another win when the scoreboard was reset for the home leg, and it took us just five minutes to get going again.
Raheem Sterling was wrestled to the floor by Tyrell Malacia but the winger still managed to nudge the ball into Zinchenko’s path. With plenty of room to move into, he took the ball to the edge of the area and blasted past a helpless Walter Benitez to score against the club he spent time at on loan at in 2016/17.
However PSV came back looking to restore some pride and after Johan Bakayoko fizzed an effort narrowly over the crossbar following some sloppy defending, the Dutch champions got back level on the night when Guus Til slipped a pass into Ivan Perisic and the veteran Croatian midfielder cleverly sent it into the top corner.
That was the first goal we’d conceded at home in five Champions League games this season, and Raya had to be at his best to thwart what would have been a second a minute later when he stretched to tip a goalbound Driouech effort around his far post.
This was a much tighter affair than the first leg and we went back up the other end and struck the goalframe when after a neat passing move, Myles Lewis-Skelly nudged the ball through Walter Benitez’s legs but saw the effort trickle against the post. But on 37 minutes, we get ourselves back in front, with Sterling in the thick of the action again.
The winger chested down a crossfield pass on the touchline and sped down the right, beating Driouech and then Malacia to allow him the chance to cross, and he sent a pinpoint delivery into the box where Rice was lurking to head past Benitez and score in successive Gunners games.
Sterling had a golden chance to add a goal to his two assists just before half-time when Zinchenko won the ball on the edge of our box following a PSV free-kick and fed the England man with 50 yards to run into. He held off the defence to go one-on-one with Benitez, but the Argentinian stopper stayed big and made a save.
With nothing to lose, PSV began the second half pushing for an equaliser and Raya was called into action again to divert an Isaac Babadi curler past his post, while Joey Veerman nearly capped an intricate attack but fired into the boisterous away contingent in the Clock End.
Sights of goal dried up for us after the break but Riccardo Calafiori almost made an instant impression off the bench as he linked up with Lewis-Skelly on the edge of the box before shooting at Benitez, but 20 minutes from time the visitors once again found a way to draw level.
Jorginho was caught in possession on the halfway line and Babadi’s pass allowed the lively Driouech to escape behind our defence. With Raya stranded, the Morrocan chipped the ball over his head and into the net to make it 2-2.
We had a late chance to win the game when in a congested box, Sterling linked up with Martin Odegaard and the ball spun into the former’s path but Benitez managed to flick it wide of the mark, but in the final seconds Sterling picked up a booking that will see him miss the first leg of the quarter-final next month.
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