For Arsenal a Premier League and Champions League double is suddenly on. What a turnaround in their season in the space of a fortnight.
Tuesday night’s win against Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid was as hard-earned as it was deserved.
Here Daily Mail Sport looks at the key elements of one of the biggest victories in the club’s history.
Bukayo Saka’s winner against Atletico Madrid sent Arsenal into the Champions League final
BIG MANAGERS MAKE BIG CALLS
Strong management involves making big decisions when your gut tells you to, even if it can sometimes appear to go against logic. That’s what Mikel Arteta has done as Arsenal’s season has reached its defining days and weeks.
Who, for example, would have expected to see such a late season impact from Ben White? Yet the right-back’s combinations down his flank with Bukayo Saka were excellent once again here.
No decision has been bigger, meanwhile, than the one to reinstate teenager Myles Lewis-Skelly. Arsenal spent big money on Martin Zubimendi last summer as they sought a midfield partner for Declan Rice. But the Spanish international sat on the bench for much of the night as his place was handed to a 19-year-old that we are more accustomed to seeing play as a left-back.
Lewis-Skelly was caught in possession as Atletico started strongly but was fundamental to Arsenal’s subsequent improvement. Afterwards his partner Rice summed it up and said: ‘The manager has been tough on him behind the scenes. He has kept his head down and he has worked so hard. He is in early, in the gym. To be thrown in at the deep end and perform how he did is no surprise to me.”
England manager Thomas Tuchel will now be an interested observer over the next couple of weeks. Tuchel loves the Arsenal youngster and if he stays in Arsenal’s team, and the knock he collected here isn’t too impactful, Lewis-Skelly could yet make it to the World Cup.
Myles Lewis-Skelly’s reinstatement into the Arsenal team has been one Arteta’s biggest calls
Lewis-Skelly was fundamental to Arsenal against Atletico and could make England’s World Cup squad
WAS THIS THE REAL VIKTOR GYOKERES?
Has Arsenal’s big striker been a little disappointing this season? Maybe. His numbers have been okay – he had 21 goals before this game started – but at times he has looked a little lost in Arsenal’s formation.
Too often it looked as though the Gunners had maybe bought the wrong kind of forward. Well here at an energised and very grateful Emirates, the 27-year-old Swede turned up at last and it was his old fashioned running of the channels that injected some life into his team after a slow start and indeed contributed to the opening goal.
Central defenders are happy to deal with big number nines if they are constantly occupying the space immediately in front of them. When they start to turn and hit wide areas at speed, it becomes an awful lot harder to keep them quiet.
Gyokeres maybe hasn’t played as we expected him to this season. He rarely looks proficient in the air, for example. But his performance here was of another level. He will need to do it all again if Arsenal are to triumph against better opposition than this in Budapest.
‘He was immense,’ said Arteta and it was perfectly put.
Viktor Gyokeres stepped up for Arsenal and caused problems for the Atletico Madrid defence
THIS IS FUEL FOR THE TITLE PUSH
This may sound like a strange thing to say but Arsenal really should go on to win the Premier League from here.
Speak to any player or coach who has been in this situation and they will tell you how the habit of winning big games bleeds into one competition from another. Indeed when Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United denied Arsenal in both league and FA Cup on their way the treble in 1999, he put his team’s triumph down to the fact that there was never any time between games for the adrenaline to subside.
Arsenal will already be well fuelled from that point of view after Manchester City’s setback in the league at Everton on Monday and they should now run hot into their next big game at West Ham on Sunday.
‘From this competition to the Premier League, we have gone full throttle,’ said Rice, agreeing with the theme.
Progression to the Champions League final should also boost Arsenal’s Premier League title push
‘We have found ourselves in a good position with less than a month to go. Sunday now is a massive one.’
Arteta should be able to introduce some freshness into his team this weekend as his squad is deep and largely free from injury now.
With the likes of Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz unused substitutes here and Martin Odegaard and Noni Madueke asked to provide substitute cameos, Arsenal should head to east London on full fire power this weekend.
There is also the fact that a scrap for Champions League final places begins here. It’s the perfect recipe for Arteta.
How quickly his team’s season has turned – again! The home league defeat to Bournemouth was less than a month ago.
RICE SETS A STANDARD HE MUST KEEP
It always feels puzzling that Declan Rice is not the Arsenal captain. Whether it’s the position he plays or because he is English, he looks like a captain in waiting but sits behind Martin Odegaard and Saka in the queue. This was a captain’s performance, though, so maybe the details of who actually wears the armband don’t really matter.
The 27-year-old should be in his peak years as a footballer now and this was very much a contribution from a player who looks like he is coming of age at this level. He does need to dominate like this more often, though. It’s what the really elite midfield players do and we probably don’t see it often enough from him.
Rice definitely needs to score more goals – he has only scored fifteen in the league in more than 100 games – and most of his assists come from corners. But this was a night to remind us that Arsenal have a stellar talent on their books. As they should have, given that they paid West Ham £105m for him.
Declan Rice produced a captain’s performance and Atletico struggled when he drove forwards
Referee Daniel Siebert commanded the game with personality and a lack of fuss
PREMIER LEAGUE COULD LEARN FROM SIEBERT
What a joy it was to see a big game refereed with such authority and lack of fuss. Suffice to say there are a few in the Premier League who could learn from the German Daniel Siebert.
Games of this magnitude are always fraught and Atletico sometimes present their own unique challenges. We saw that in the first leg in Madrid last week.
But the fact we reached the last ten minutes of a blood and thunder contest before a yellow card was shown said everything for the way Siebert was able to command the game via his own personality rather than the cards he was carrying in his back pocket.
He maybe should have given a penalty when Antoine Griezmann bundled Leandro Trossard over in the first half but no referee is perfect.
The behaviour from both benches left much to be desired at the death and there may well be ramifications. Siebert deserved better than the stick he received at the full-time whistle.
