Arsenal 2-2 Bayern Munich: The Gunners rescue a draw to keep UCL hopes alive

The substitute combination of Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Jesus keep Arsenal with hope as they travel to Munich for the return league of the quarterfinals.

The Gooners were hopeful when they seen Bukayo Saka in the starting line-up as they thought they would have been favourites to take a result over to Germany with them. Along with that seeing two players that are no strangers in north London, Harry Kane and Eric Dier starting for the opposition, who when they were on the ball would receive a large amount of expected hostility, but the hostility quickly turned into a massive roar when Ben White, with a simple pass, gave the ball to Sake who finessed his shot into the bottle left corner, past a returning Manuel Neuer to have the Gunners 1-0 up inside 12 minutes to give them the perfect start they had hoped for.

Another player that is no stranger to north London, managed to get Bayern a quick-fire equaliser, as Leon Goretzka made a great run past Declan Rice to find Serge Gnabry swept the ball past David Raya to make the game all square again.

We all knew Kane would be largely involved in the game at some point and he was, just past the half hour mark when a running Leroy Sane was tripped at the end of his run by William Sabila in the Arsenal box and the referee pointed to the spot. No one else was ever going to take the penalty other than Kane himself and up he stepped and calmly placed the ball to Raya’s left and put Bayern 2-1 up in the leg, but upon watching the penalty back, Raya did seem to dive to his right a little early which would have given Kane plenty of time to change any other placement he had in his mind, but after Arsenal’s blistering start, they find themselves 2-1 down at half-time.

Starting the second half, Arsenal made a substitution which seen Kiwior be replaced by Zinchenko, so a straight swap but as we know, an extra man in midfield as Zinchenko likes to play that inverted fullback role.

Arsenal made a further two substitutions that seen Jesus and Trossard on for Martinelli and Jorginho. Mikel Arteta got his subs right as his two attacking changes were the two the combined to get Arsenal’s equalising goal as Jesus with great feet somehow managed to find Trossard to his left, who had great feet himself and managed to slot in past Neuer with 15 minutes to go.

In the very last minute of the five extra minutes that were added on after the 90, Saka found himself on the end of a great ball from Partey, he tried to go around Neuer in a one on one situation but went down inside the box but the referee waved away the call and continued with play, he them blew for full-time and with players swamping him, confirmed that VAR came to the same conclusion as the on-field decision so at half-time in the quarter final it’s 2-2 and we no longer have the away goal rule in play anymore so Bayern Munich’s only advantage is the home crowd and stadium.

Arsenal will still have every bit of hope and belief that they can get the result in Germany and advance to the semi-finals where either Manchester City or Real Madrid will await them. Their first leg seen a great 3-3 draw and the second leg to be played at the Etihad.

Although Arsenal may be disappointed with the overall result, they did well to get themselves back on level terms for the second leg and again, although statistically thy have the harder side of the draw, there are no easy games left in the competition as every team left in it are all big names and if they are to win their first Champions League, they need to beat the best to be the best and be crowned Champions of Europe.