Arsenal can edge Champions League semi-final, first leg against Paris Saint-Germain but will it be enough to reach the final?

Now the Premier League title race is done and dusted and Arsenal are poised to finish second for the third season on the trot it is time for them to concentrate on winning the Champions League for the first time in their history.

To do that the Gunners, beaten by Barcelona in the 2006 final, will have to sweep aside a young, energetic and determined Paris Saint-German who are also seeking to finally lift club football’s holy grail – having lost the 2020 showpiece to Bayern Munich in front of an empty stadium in Lisbon because of lockdown.

Both sides reached this season’s semi-finals with impressive victories over classy opponents, Mikel Arteta’s men defeated defending champion Real Madrid 5-1 on aggregate while PSG repelled Aston Villa’s ferocious attempt at a second-leg fightback to go through 5-4.

The perennial Ligue 1 champions had previously beaten new Premier League kings Liverpool over two legs and although they are considered less of a threat away from their Parc des Princes home it is worth noting that they scored in their last 18 games on the road.

Arsenal will point out that they kept a clean sheet when the two sides met at the Emirates Stadium in the group stage and would love to repeat that 2-0 win – a handy advantage to take into next week’s second leg across the Channel.

But the loss of key central defender Gabriel, who is out for the rest of the season with a hamstring injury, and a lengthy list of other injuries plus the absence of suspended midfielder Thomas Partey are big blows.

PSG have a clean bill of health and the Gunners will have to find an alternative way of minimising the danger posed by the dangerous Ousmane Dembele, who has scored 31 goals and provided a boatload of assists in 43 matches this term.

True, he hasn’t scored for six games in all competitions but Dembele is worth siding with at 5/2 with Paddy Power and Betfair to end that drought by scoring at any time.

Meanwhile, Leandro Trossard has found his shooting boots with four goals in his last six Arsenal appearances and is 14/5 with BetMGM and Unibet to reply for the hosts.

Arsenal are 29/25 to win with BetGoodwin but the better way to go is to take them to triumph with both teams scoring at 10/3 to with bet365, Sky Bet and Betfair.

A 2-1 victory for the Gunners is 8/1 with bet365 and will leave the second leg in the French capital next Wednesday nicely poised.

• Jakub Mensik caused an upset when he beat Jack Draper in the second round of the Miami Open soon after the British No.1 had won at Indian Wells but the Czech player created even bigger headlines when he overpowered Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the final in Florida. 

Now the world No.23 is making progress in the Madrid Open and after beating high-profile American Ben Shelton 6-1, 6-4 he can overpower Alexander Bublik to reach the quarter-finals. 

Mensik, 19, can beat the Kazakhstan player, who is not the strongest on clay and has fallen down the rankings from No.17 a year ago to a current position of No.80, in straight sets at evens with bet365.

• Zhao Xintong, the Cyclone from China, is the first amateur to reach the World Snooker Championship quarter-finals but he’s no stranger to success having stormed his way to UK Championship success in 2021 when he beat Luca Brecel in the decider before winning the German Masters the following year.

His promising career was then derailed when he was banned for two years following an investigation into a betting scandal which shook the sport but now he is back and seeking redemption. Zhao can overcome England’s Chris Wakelin, who defeated Mark Allen in the last round, by three frames or more at 19/20 with William Hill. 

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