Arsenal were very 2025/26 Arsenal against Sporting CP on Tuesday night, getting the job done courtesy of a stoppage-time Kai Havertz winner.

In their Champions League quarter-final first leg in Lisbon, Mikel Arteta’s side delivered the sort of performance we’ve become accustomed to this season. It was measured, cautious and devoid of risk. The game was drifting towards a goalless draw that would have drawn familiar criticism, even if, in the context of a two-legged tie, it wouldn’t have been the worst result in the world.

Instead, Havertz struck in the 91st minute and changed the mood entirely. Arsenalnow have one foot in the semi-finals and, from here, anything other than progression would be a huge surprise and a sackable offence.

Their home record in this competition under Arteta suggests the job is as good as done. Arsenal have been consistently strong at the Emirates in Europe, and you would have to be extremely bold to predict a Sporting comeback from this position.

And yet, despite the result, this performance felt like a continuation of the same underlying issue that has followed Arsenal for months.

Because while the Champions League has occasionally allowed them to play with a bit more freedom against more open teams, the moment the stakes rise, the handbrake goes straight back on. Control becomes the priority. Not losing outweighs winning.

It is a deliberate approach, and it works up to a point. Arsenal are difficult to beat, well-drilled and rarely lose control of matches. But it also makes them predictable, and at times painfully uninspiring. There is a sense that this team is constantly playing within itself.

That’s fine when the results follow. Less so when they don’t.

And that’s why this match mattered beyond simply taking a lead back to London. Arsenal came into it on the back of a calamitous run – losing the Carabao Cup finaland crashing out of the FA Cup to second-tier Southampton – and badly needed a performance that felt like a reset, something to build momentum ahead of the Premier League run-in.

Instead, they got a win that raises as many questions as it answers.

Because the reality is now very simple: this season will be judged on whether Arsenal win one of the two major prizes still available to them. Fall short in both the Premier League and the Champions League and it will go down as the biggest collapse in a list containing quite a few of them under Arteta.

And if that happens, it will once again be largely self-inflicted.

It’s the history of the Arsenal.

The most frustrating part is that the tools are clearly there. This is an expensively assembled, technically gifted squad that should be far more exciting than it is. Instead, too many players look constrained by the system.

Martin Odegaard was busy doing nothing, looking lively in pointless areas and never actually hurting Sporting. Leandro Trossard was anonymous for long periods, while Viktor Gyokeres cut an isolated figure with a lack of service he is clearly very used to at this early stage of his Arsenal career.

Gabriel Martinelli’s glitch in the system was the one genuine moment of incision, driving inside and creating the winner for Havertz. It stood out precisely because it felt so different to everything else Arsenal had produced.

While Arsenal were dull offensively, without David Raya, this could easily have been a very different story. The goalkeeper produced one of the saves of the season early on to tip Luis Suarez’s rocket onto the crossbar, and he made some crucial stops in the second half, while showing his ability to be a world-class sweeper-keeper.

There is a fair argument that Arteta is not getting the best out of his attacking players. But there is also an uncomfortable question as to whether he actually has a truly elite forward to build around. Either way, something doesn’t quite click in the final third.

Even in victory, there are too many players who feel replaceable. Ben White was smartly targeted by Sporting, while others failed to impose themselves before being withdrawn. The fact that the winning goal came from substitutes only underlined that point.

Ultimately, this was a very familiar Arsenal performance: controlled, unspectacular, but effective enough.

And if they keep winning, none of this will matter. Results will justify the approach, and history will quickly forget the lack of entertainment.

But if they fall short – in either the Premier League or the Champions League – then nights like this will be revisited as part of a wider pattern: a team that had the quality to do more, but too often chose to keep the handbrake on.

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