It was ugly, extraordinarily tense, exponentially so. But it only made the release for Arsenal at the very end feel even more dramatic, the joy unconfined. After an excruciating wait – 14 years to be precise, taking in this tie that stretched like an epic – Arsenal can take their place in the Champions League quarter-finals.
They will surely have to play better than this if they are to extend the adventure. As in the first leg, they found Porto to be impossibly frustrating, so difficult to break down. Leandro Trossard scored the goal that cancelled out Galeno’s late cracker from the Dragão but it was a night when Arsenal laboured in creative terms.
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