Arsenal cruised into the quarter-finals of the Europa League, beating Serie A giants AC Milan 5-1 on aggregate after a second leg win at the Emirates.
With Petr Cech’s star on the wane and fast, the Europa League offers a real opportunity for David Ospina to stake a claim to be Arsenal’s number one goalkeeper.
But, despite conceding just once in 180 minutes in the round-of-16 clash with AC Milan as Arsenal cruised to a 5-1 aggregate win, the Colombian did himself little favours when it really mattered.
Milan took the lead in the second leg at the Emirates on Thursday night, a long-range Hakan Calhanoglu strike giving Gennaro Gattuso’s side hope of breathing life into a tie that had looked all but over.
But, as impressive as the goal was from an attacking point of view, even a proud member of the goalkeeping union would struggle to argue that Ospina could not have done a little better.
The 29-year-old seemed to wait an age before shifting his feet and, by that point, Calhanoglu’s swerving hit had found the bottom corner of his net. Fortunately, Danny Welbeck, thanks in part to one of the most blatant dives you will see this season, rendered Ospina’s error moot as Arsenal turned around the one-goal deficit to seal a 3-1 victory in north London.
Ospina will be playing in the quarter-finals of the Europa League in the very near future. But whether he will take Cech’s place in the Premier League remains to be seen.
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