Arsenal went all the way to penalties in the Europa League on Thursday night in a testing evening at The Emirates.
The Gunners took a first-half lead after Gabriel Martinelli saw his shot saved, the rebound fell to Granit Xhaka who made no mistake.
But a sensational second-half lob from Pedro Goncalves drew Sporting Lisbon. Both teams could’ve won it in the latter part of the game and Arsenal took control in extra time, but the Sporting keeper was in inspired form.
That form continued into the penalty shoot-out
Use our player rater tool below to have your say on how the players performed, and see the average of all the other fans. Scroll down to see how we rated the players and who we chose as the man of the match.
Here’s how I rated the players:
Aaron Ramsdale – 6
Oleksandr Zinchenko – 6
Gabriel Magalhaes – 6
William Saliba – 6 (off first half injured), Holding – 5
Ben White (on very early for the injured Tomiyasu) – 6
Jorginho – 6, Thomas Partey (subbed on) – 7
Granit Xhaka – 6
Fabio Vieira – 6, Martin Odegaard (subbed on in ET) –
Reiss Nelson – 6, Bukayo Saka (subbed on) – 6
Gabriel Jesus – 6 (off at HT), Leandro Trossard – 5
Gabriel Martinelli – 7
Man of the match: Gabriel Martinelli. Worked really hard all game and his run and shot created Xhaka’s goal. Thomas Partey also made a big difference in enabling Arsenal to control the game, something they struggled to do before his introduction.Â