Danny Welbeck adds fizz to Arsenal’s singular Europa concoction

Midway through the second half of a match whose tension levels had amped up beyond recognition, Danny Welbeck conjured up a moment that promised everything and nothing. Arsenal were rocking and CSKA Moscow raucous but there was Welbeck, burning away from a panting Kirill Nababkin on the left flank, eating up 50 yards of turf and offering a self-made opportunity on the counter. His centre, scuffed and misdirected with team-mates waiting, was poor and at that moment it was tempting to wonder whether Arsenal, who had rarely reached anything like that speed in the previous 65 minutes, would pay the ultimate price for not working through the gears a little sooner.

Instead Welbeck came again, having Nababkin on toast once more en route to a sweet combination with Mohamed Elneny for the game’s killer goal. Arsenal’s throng of several hundred supporters, flung up in the gods of the stand at the far end, had been given advance notice after all and Welbeck grew further into his unlikely role as Europa League relaxant, first earned as Milan threatened to have fun at the Emirates a month ago.

His status seems fitting to what has been a strange path to the semi-finals for Arsenal: a singular mixture of near-apathy, eccentricity and exhilaration, blended into a concoction that all seems rather familiar. This, though, felt like one of the more life-affirming football occasions of their European campaign even if, having hardly been dealt a blow by CSKA for the first 39 minutes, they should not have given the night a chance to take such a perilous course. So much of the attention before this return fixture, with the tie seemingly wrapped up in north London, had been on off-pitch concerns; in the event both teams left the pitch with applause reverberating and the only discomfort for anyone connected to the visiting side had come in the half-hour or so of play after Fedor Chalov’s opening goal.

Local security forces had left little to chance in the buildup. An estimated 2,000 police and security officers were pressed into action; those positioned inside the nearby CSKA metro station, a shiny facility that opened this year and houses imposing statues of sporting heroes from the club’s past, would have heard as much Russian as English being spoken by many of the Arsenal fans who passed through. The local branch of Arsenal’s support were out in force; it added to a mixed, entirely non-confrontational environment that ended up feeling more like a celebration of what continental competition ought to be than an acid test of a World Cup host’s ability to avoid disaster.

That was how it had been billed in some quarters, though, and the problem with acknowledging the occasion’s smooth running is that, in doing so, one runs the risk of legitimising the hyperbole. Liverpool and Manchester United had both come and gone from Moscow with little fanfare just six and a half months previously, after all; the likelihood of escalating diplomatic tensions emboldening a hardcore hooligan element to court trouble always seemed remote but perhaps the evening will have served a useful purpose if it leads some of the pre-World Cup hysteria to be dialled down.

The only frenzied scenes came in the stands, where a section of CSKA’s ultras performed their customary shirt removal during the period of the second half when Arsenal themselves risked being stripped naked. It was a relentlessly positive vibe and that continued into the post-match press conference, where the likeable home coach Viktor Goncharenko was applauded out of the room by an appreciative local media who saw a technical, mobile side put up a far more coherent all-round performance than it had a week previously.

It was Welbeck’s ability to smooth out his own rough edges that made the difference in the end, though, and Arsenal move on to what will – for all CSKA’s flourishes, led by the excellent Aleksandr Golovin – surely be a sterner test in the semi-finals. The most perplexing of seasons is lurching towards a showdown, perhaps decisive for Arsène Wenger’s future, in Lyon. Wenger said afterwards that Welbeck “has that extra motivation that he can give you something special”. Those are not words he has had the chance to ponder often but together, in their unorthodox way, player and team made sure they were the only story here.