Arsenal Champions League path to final becomes clearer with reunion in the offing

Arsenal have discovered their Champions League quarter-final opponents if they manage to see off Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday night

Arsenal's path to Champions League glory has become clearer after Sporting beat Bodo/Glimt to set up a quarter-final clash against either the Gunners or Bayer Leverkusen. Both Arsenal and Leverkusen meet on Tuesday evening with the tie evenly poised at 1-1 after the first leg in Germany last week.

And the winner will face Sporting – Viktor Gyokeres' old club – after a thrilling second leg in Lisbon on Tuesday evening. The Portuguese side were trailing 3-0 from the first leg in Norway, but goals from Goncalo Inacio, Pedro Goncalves and Luis Suarez put them level to take it to extra-time at the Jose Alvalade Stadium.

Maxi Araujo then completed the extraordinary comeback to make it 4-3 on aggregate, before they added a fifth right at the end to seal their place in the quarter-finals.

If Arsenal manage to overcome Leverkusen on Tuesday and then Sporting in the last eight, they will face one of Barcelona, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur or Atletico Madrid in the semi-finals.

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Barca are currently level at 1-1 from the first leg at St James' Park. The second leg in Catalonia takes place on Wednesday (5:45pm GMT).

Spurs, meanwhile, trail Atletico 5-2 from the first leg in Madrid. The second leg of that tie will also be played on Wednesday (8pm GMT).

The Gunners, though, will be confident of a deep run in this season's competition, having been drawn in the weaker side of the draw - avoiding holders Paris Saint-Germain, European giants Real Madrid, German champions Bayern Munich and Premier League title rivals Manchester City.

PSG, who knocked Arsenal out of last year's competition, lead Chelsea 5-2 from the first leg in Paris and are set to meet either Liverpool or Galatasaray in the quarter-finals. The Reds trail 1-0 from the first leg in Turkey.

The winner of that quarter-final would face either Real, who lead Man City 3-0 from the first leg, or Bayern who hold a commanding 6-1 lead over Atalanta.

Whatever happens in the other ties, Arsenal's showdown in north London against Leverkusen will be Mikel Arteta's focus on Tuesday evening. The Spaniard did, however, admit before the first leg that his team's 100 per cent record in the League Phase has earned his side a kind draw.

He said: "Well, we are very excited to play the next round. We have earned the right to be in a strong position, what we’ve done in the group stage and that’s it.

"Now we need to start to analyse them and find ways to be better than them to try and go through the tie.

"We are really excited. Going on four fronts and the way the team is consistently performing gives us a lot of hope and positive thoughts about what is coming. But we can only focus on the present."