By ,
Published May 02, 2016
London, England (SportsNetwork.com) - Dimitar Berbatov, Yannick Ferreira- Carrasco and Geoffrey Kondogbia scored on each side of the intermission on Wednesday, leading Monaco to a shock 3-1 victory over Arsenal in the first leg of their round-of-16 tie at the Emirates Stadium.
Kondogbia opened the scoring with a fantastic strike late in the first half against the run of play, while Berbatov, the former Manchester United man, completed a well-executed counter-attack early in the second half.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain pulled a goal back for the Gunners in stoppage time, but Monaco still heads home for the second leg of the tie with a comfortable lead.
The result gives Monaco a massive leg up in the tie as the principality club holds the away goals lead when the clubs return to the Stade Louis II for the second leg on March 17.
Arsenal carried the play for much of the early portion of the match and generated the first quality scoring chance in the 33rd minute as Alexis Sanchez had a go from inside the penalty area, but it was expertly parried over the crossbar by Monaco goalkeeper Danijel Subasic.
The visitors struck for the lead in the 39th minute when Kondogbia picked his head up from about 25 yards out and unleashed a thunderbolt that took a deflection off Arsenal defender Per Mertesaker and left Arsenal goalkeeper David Ospina flat-footed for the opening salvo of the tie.
Monaco doubled the lead in the 53rd minute by hitting on a well-executed counter-attack. Anthony Martial got on the end of an excellent pass down the left that beat four Arsenal defenders. He then slid it across to Berbatov, who smashed it into the bottom left corner.
The Gunners continued to squander chances all night as Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud both missed point-blank opportunities in front of goal as the clock approached the hour mark.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger went all-out attack in the second half, sending on Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Tomas Rosicky hoping to at least cut the deficit in half heading into the second leg, and he got exactly that as Oxlade Chamberlain pulled one back in stoppage time with an excellent strike just inside the right post.
But Monaco answered quickly in stoppage time as Ferreira-Carrasco beat Ospina low to the far post to give his team a 3-1 lead.
Despite getting a goal back, the Gunners will have plenty of work to do in Monaco if they hope to avoid a fifth consecutive round-of-16 exit.
Wednesday's other Champions League fixture also produced a bit of an upset as Bayer Leverkusen knocked off Atletico Madrid at the BayArena.
Hakan Calhanoglu scored the lone tally in the 57th minute and Tiago was shown a second yellow card with 14 minutes to play as the Bundesliga side heads to the Vicente Calderon for the second leg with the lead.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/monaco-stuns-arsenal-at-the-emirates