Nerveless Arsenal Hammer CSKA To Move Towards Europa League Semis

London, April 6 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th Apr, 2018 ) :Arsenal romped towards the Europa League semi-finals with a 4-1 thrashing of CSKA Moscow on Thursday in a match devoid of any of the political tension that threatened to overshadow the tie due to frosty relations between London and the Russian capital.

Britain has suspended high-level diplomatic contact with the Russian government after former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve agent in the southern English city of Salisbury last month.

However, with only around 200 CSKA fans making the long journey west, there was little bad blood inside the ground for the quarter-final first leg. And Arsenal quickly ended any doubt over the contest on the field as Aaron Ramsey and Alexandre Lacazette both scored twice in the first half to surely put the tie out of CKSA's reach.

Languishing in sixth in the Premier League, 13 points adrift of the top four, Arsenal's last realistic hope of qualifying for next season's Champions League is by winning the Europa League in Lyon on May 16.

And that desperation showed in a fast start with the trickery of Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan pulling the Russian defence apart. Mkhitaryan should have put the hosts ahead inside three minutes when he shot into the side-netting before Ramsey's first goal of the night was ruled out for offside against Ozil.

However, the Welshman did open the scoring by rounding off a fine team move on nine minutes by firing Hector Bellerin's cross into the roof of the net. While CSKA were unable to cope with Arsenal's speed of thought and movement at the back, they exposed the Gunners' own defensive weaknesses.

Aleksandr Golovin curled home a wonderful free-kick after haphazard defending from Shkodran Mustafi and Laurent Koscielny to level six minutes later. And the Russians could even have gone in front when Ahmed Musa fired into the side-netting with just Petr Cech to beat.