Arsenal survive Moscow scare to reach Europa League semis

MOSCOW, Russia: Arsenal survived a scare as they progressed to the last four of the Europa League on Thursday after coming back to draw 2-2 with CSKA Moscow in Russia in their quarter-final second leg.

Fedor Chalov and Kirill Nababkin scored for CSKA to set Arsenal nerves jangling in the Russian capital, but Danny Welbeck and Aaron Ramsey both netted late on for the Premier League side as they won the quarter-final 6-3 on aggregate.

It was another night of comebacks in a crazy midweek in Europe, with Marseille and Red Bull Salzburg producing stirring performances to overturn firstleg deficits.

Atletico Madrid are also through, and remain the favourites, despite losing 1-0 on the night away to Sporting Lisbon.

Arsene Wenger was without Granit Xhaka and Henrikh Mkhitaryan in Moscow so Mohamed Elneny and Welbeck came in as the two changes to the team that won the first leg 4-1.

Clinging to the Europa League to rescue their season as they languish well out of the running for a top-four finish in the Premier League, the Gunners came close to suffering a humiliating defeat at the CSKA Arena.

The hosts, spurred on by a 29,000 crowd, went ahead six minutes before the interval when Chalov followed in to score after Petr Cech had saved low down from Nababkin.

CSKA hopes were raised further as Nababkin made it 2-0 in the 50th minute after Cech had beaten away Alexander Golovin’s long-range strike.

But Arsenal ended any doubt with quarter of an hour left as Welbeck played a brilliant onetwo with Elneny before finishing sweetly into the corner to reduce the deficit on the night and extend their lead in the tie.

Elneny then sent Ramsey -scorer of a brace in the first leg -away to score Arsenal’s equaliser on the night in stoppage time.

“Maybe we were a bit surprised by the intensity of the game and we were not in the races in the first half. We were a bit on the ropes, but we had a good response,” Wenger told BT Sport after Arsenal secured a first European semi-final appearance since 2009.

“It should be every year. It’s never enough. You could see this week in Europe that you had a lot of turnarounds and you need to be completely focused, so let’s be prepared and see who we play.”