Atletico Madrid 1 Arsenal 1
All to play for next week at the Emirates. After last nights madness we were always going to have a less exciting game tonight but that’s not to say there wasn’t a lot of drama in Madrid tonight, the first half was mainly dominated by Arsenal but they couldn’t create a clear chance to get in front until the end of the half when Gyokeres was brought down sloppily by Hancko in the box as the referee awarded Arsenal a penalty in the 44th minute. Viktor Gyokeres stepped up and swept the ball past Oblak giving Arsenal the lead going into half-time, Atleti couldn’t have been any worse in the second half and started much better eventually leading to the awarding of another penalty as Llorente’s shot hit off Ben White’s hand in the box which the VAR deemed to be enough to send the ref to the monitor who of course awarded the penalty. Julian Alvarez stepped up and blasted the ball past Raya who stayed down the middle as Atleti levelled the game in the 56th minute, from there Atleti really should have gone in front as Griezmann hit the bar and Lookman missed a great chance one on one with Raya. Arsenal then started to gain some momentum as Saka played the ball into Eze who was brought down in the box again by Hancko with the referee awarding a penalty, then surprisingly the VAR sent the ref to the screen who went against his initial decision and overturned the penalty. After that both teams looked happy enough with the draw with it all to play for next week at the Emirates.
A surprisingly poor first half cost Atletico tonight. With the atmosphere before the game I thought Atleti would come flying out of the blocks but they were sluggish in the first half giving the ball away needlessly which then led to the Arsenal penalty as Alvarez headed the ball straight back to Arsenal who won the penalty then after, Simeone then changed system in the second half taking his son off for Le Normand which pushed Llorente further forward on the right. This worked brilliantly as Atleti were far better in the second half creating great chances for Lookman and Griezmann who another day could have scored 2 or 3, the penalty was a bit fortunate but in Europe you get penalties for nothing so I guess you just take it and move on. In the end I think it’s going to be tough next week at the Emirates for Atleti but they can go through, just look at the result in the last round against Barcelona at the Camp Nou.
Arsenal will definitely take the draw heading back to the Emirates next week. If you offered Arteta a draw before the game I think he would have taken it so it’s definitely a decent result for Arsenal, I don’t think they played particularly well on the night with the attack yet again disappointing as Madueke-Gyokeres-Martinelli all had pretty poor games and were taken off with 30 minutes left to play which I think says it all. Having the penalty overturned in the second half was unfortunate and I’ll talk about that later but that would have changed everything in the tie if Arsenal had of scored the penalty, the one problem that Arsenal have is that they can’t rest on the weekend against Fulham whereas Simeone will rest his entire 11 with Atleti having nothing to play for in the league for the rest of the season. The result makes Arsenal favourites to reach the final next week but they’ll have to be careful not to fall into whatever trap Simeone will most likely set up next week.
Should Arsenal’s penalty have been overturned? There’ll be different opinions on this one but I can’t really understand how VAR deems it as a clear and obvious error when there definitely is a bit of contact on Eze despite him going down pretty easily, my problem with it is that if the referee hadn’t of given the penalty would the VAR have sent him to the screen to review the decision? I don’t think he would have given it so that tells you everything as to what the problem is with VAR in Europe, the antics of Simeone probably played a part in the referees final decision but that’s the beauty of Simeone as a manager which you have to deal with on a night as big as this one. It is unfortunate that it has been the main talking point of the game afterwards but when the games this close I guess that’s what people will focus on, hopefully there’s no referring drama next week at the Emirates.
Who’s going to the final next week? Although Arsenal will be favourites Atletico will be confident of getting a result at the Emirates next week after putting Barcelona out in the last round, Arsenal’s home form hasn’t been brilliant over recent weeks with the most recent loss coming against Bournemouth last week. You’d imagine it’ll be similar to tonight’s game with Atleti playing on the break as Simeone will be hoping that Alvarez’s injury doesn’t keep him out of the game next week as he’s by some distance their best player at the minute, for Arsenal you’d imagine that Saka and Eze will start next week barring any injuries on the weekend which will make a massive difference with the way Odegaard and Madueke played tonight. I think Arsenal might edge it but do not count out Simeone and Atletico next week as it could come back to bite you.