Edgy Arsenal squeeze past Sporting Lisbon to set up Atlético semi-final

To borrow a line from Mikel Arteta, it is not meant to be easy. And it was anything but on the latest anxiety-ridden, claustrophobic occasion for his Arsenal team.

The club’s recent wobble has been pronounced. The loss to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final. The FA Cup exit at Southampton. The Premier League defeat against Bournemouth. The nerves are pounding like a migraine and this was a night that was entirely outcome-based.

Hold on to the 1-0 lead from the first-leg of this quarter-final and it would be glory – only a fourth appearance in the semi-finals of the competition. Fall short against a tidy Sporting team and ignominy was guaranteed; a deepening of the existential crisis. It is Manchester City next at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, after all.

The tie rested on the edge of a knife throughout. Arsenal were tough to watch in an attacking sense, unable to penetrate and create. Arteta had demanded there was no fear. Which was absolutely not the case.

It came to be a question of whether Arsenal could keep the backdoor shut. Gloriously, they could, the defensive resolve that has underpinned their season coming to the fore. There were anxious moments. Geny Catamo hit the post for Sporting just before half-time and there were other moments when the visitors almost made it happen. Not least at the very last when the substitute João Simões dragged a shot just wide.

They could not find a way through and when the final whistle went, Arsenal were left to contemplate a semi-final date with Atlético Madrid – a team they humbled 4-0 here during the league phase. The sense of possibility continues to flicker. Arteta has long been obsessed with confronting only the task in hand, the focus laser-like, the next game, nothing more than that. It felt more difficult given the magnitude of what is to come for Arsenal at Manchester City at the weekend, how much is riding on that. But Arteta’s eyes were purely on the Champions League – mainly because this kind of night does not come around very often. “History in our sights,” ran the wording at the bottom of the pre-match tifo from the Arsenal fans.

The trauma of what happened here in the Premier League on Saturday framed a good deal of the occasion from an Arsenal point of view. Arteta’s team had been so flat, so meek in the loss to Bournemouth. It needed to be “a wake-up call,” as Lee Dixon, the former Arsenal defender, put it during an on-pitch interview beforehand.

William Saliba raises his arms with delight after Arsenal’s progress to the semi-finals. Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Action Images/Reuters

Arsenal bristled with intensity at the outset and the crowd responded. There was hard running, a maniacal desire to win the duels and lay down markers. Sporting faced a test of their composure. It was noticeable that the right-winger, Geny Catamo, dropped deep as an auxiliary right-back as Sporting defended in a 5-3-2 shape. There was a storm for them to weather in the opening 10 minutes or so.

The Portuguese champions weathered it and it was not long before their supporters were able to make themselves heard. It would have been a tall order for Arsenal to maintain their initial levels and when the game settled, Sporting looked polished in their 4-2-3-1 system in possession. The captain, Morten Hjulmand, was prominent in central midfield while Luis Suárez led the line with presence.

Arsenal huffed and puffed in the first 45 minutes. Nobody could fault the effort but the cutting edge was absent, the final action routinely frustrating. Viktor Gyökeres was denied by a Gonçalo Inácio challenge after Martín Zubimendi had flicked an Eberechi Eze pass inside but Arsenal created nothing of clearcut note before the interval. It said plenty that one of their best moments came when Gabriel Martinelli chased back to thwart a Catamo counter.

It was Sporting who came to look the more threatening team in the first half. There were a few wobbly passes out of defence by Arsenal, including one from David Raya that he got away with, Pedro Gonçalves failing to capitalise before Sporting fashioned the moment of the opening period. There were 43 minutes on the clock when Maximiliano Araújo got up the left to float over a cross and Catamo, having timed his run, cut across the ball to send it skidding into the far post.

Arteta sent his players out very early for the restart. They knew what they had to do. More energy, more hustle. A goal would surely be nice. A clean sheet felt like the priority. So, no loose passes, no slip-ups.

Sporting had played in only one quarter-final in this competition before, when they lost over two legs against Real Sociedad in 1982-83. This was plainly one of the grandest matches in their history. They were determined to fight every step of the way and while it was goalless, they could dream.

It was certainly not Gyökeres’s night against his former club; the centre-forward did little right with the ball and Arteta replaced him with Kai Havertz on 56 minutes. The manager’s next change was met with rapturous cheers – Max Dowman for Madueke, who had hurt himself in a collision. It is indicative of where Arsenal are at the moment that they place so much on the shoulders of a 16-year-old.

The nerves jangled for Arsenal. At the start of the second period, Martinelli lashed a shot high while Madueke put another into the side-netting. Increasingly, it came to be about what happened at the other end.