Arsenal faced off against Sporting CP at the Jose Alvalade Stadium earlier tonight as they looked to secure a win in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal clash. The Gunners made a decent start to the game but were held to a scoreless draw at the half-time break.<\/p>\n
Kai Havertz finally broke the deadlock in injury time as Mikel Arteta\u2019s men earned a narrow 1-0 win away from home.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take a look at how each Arsenal player fared during the match against Sporting.<\/p>\n
GK: David Raya \u2013 8.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n He made a few solid saves at the back and did enough to keep a clean sheet.<\/p>\n RB: Ben White \u2013 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n White performed his defensive duties well and made one key chance going forward.<\/p>\n CB: William Saliba \u2013 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n He dealt with the danger when needed and did enough to keep a clean sheet.<\/p>\n CB: Gabriel \u2013 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n Gabriel performed his defensive duties well and played well enough to limit the home side from scoring tonight.<\/p>\n LB: Riccardo Calafiori \u2013 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n He didn\u2019t do much wrong defensively, but offered very little going forward.<\/p>\n CM: Martin Odegaard \u2013 6.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n Odegaard was a positive influence at both ends of the field.<\/p>\n CM: Martin Zubimendi \u2013 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n He caught the eye at times on both halves and was accurate with his ball distribution.<\/p>\n CM: Declan Rice \u2013 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n Rice anchored the midfield well and made two inviting chances in the final third.<\/p>\n RW: Noni Maduke \u2013 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n He earned the ball back once and made a few driving runs with the ball on the right flank.<\/p>\n ST: Viktor Gyokeres \u2013 6.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n Gyokeres was a real handful for the opposition defenders, but there was no goal for him.<\/p>\n LW: Leandro Trossard \u2013 6.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n He managed to shine at times on the left wing, but never looked like he would score.<\/p>\n Substitutes:<\/strong><\/p>\n CM: Kai Havertz \u2013 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n Havertz scored the only goal of the contest in injury time.<\/p>\n LW: Gabriel Martinelli \u2013 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n He came off the bench and secured an assist.<\/p>\n RW: Max Dowman \u2013 6\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n Dowman made one good run with the ball.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arsenal faced off against Sporting CP at the Jose Alvalade Stadium earlier tonight as they looked to secure a win in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarterfinal clash. The Gunners made a decent start to the game but were held to a scoreless draw at the half-time break. Kai Havertz finally broke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Arsenal\"](\"http:\/\/the4thofficial.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/sporting-clube-de-portugal-v-arsenal-fc-uefa-champions-league-2025-26-quarter-final-first-leg-scaled.jpg\")