What we learned from Tuesday's Champions League matches

The UEFA Champions League round of 16 began on Tuesday evening, with two Premier League clubs in first-leg action. Here, football writer Tom Hancock looks at what we learned from Arsenal’s remarkable visit to PSV Eindhoven, and Aston Villa’s successful trip to Club Brugge.

Arsenal send records tumbling

PSV Eindhoven 1–7 Arsenal

Arsenal recorded their first Champions League knockout win in a decade, as the Gunners’ young stars and captain shone during a landmark demolition of PSV Eindhoven.

Aged 17 years and 348 days, Ethan Nwaneri became the second-youngest Arsenal player to make a Champions League knockout appearance, and the youngest since Cesc Fabregas (17 years, 309 days) 20 years ago.

And it took the England Under-19 international less than a quarter of the game to enter the history books, alongside 18-year-old team-mate Myles Lewis-Skelly. In linking up to double the Gunners’ lead, Nwaneri converting Lewis-Skelly’s low cross from close range, the duo became the first pair of English teenagers to combine for a goal in Champions League history.

On the evidence of the prodigious talent these two academy graduates continue to demonstrate, the future is very bright for Arsenal, who were 3-0 up after 31 minutes, with Jurrien Timber and Mikel Merino scoring either side of Nwaneri.

Seeing the floodgates open will have delighted Mikel Arteta, whose side had notched only two goals in their last three Premier League matches, both in last month’s 2-0 victory at Leicester City.

This prolific first-half performance, the only blemish on which was PSV pulling one back through Noa Lang from the penalty spot, came a year to the day since Arsenal last led 3-0 so early in a match. On that occasion, the Gunners put three past Sheffield United inside 15 minutes en route to a 6-0 Premier League triumph.

Arsenal were never going to rest on their laurels and by coming out all guns blazing at the start of the second half, they set a new Champions League record. Courtesy of quickfire strikes from skipper Martin Odegaard and Leandro Trossard, the Gunners reached the five-goal mark on 48 minutes, the earliest by any team ever in a Champions League away match.

In making it 6-1, Odegaard completed his first Champions League brace and his first brace for Arsenal since May 2023. The Gunners’ playmaking wizard was then central to goal number seven, setting up Riccardo Calafiori with an exquisite ball in behind.

And that seventh goal, five minutes from time at the Philips Stadion, represented the night’s biggest piece of history: never before had a side scored seven goals away from home in a Champions League knockout game.

Ahead of this trip to the Netherlands, Arteta had called for his side to be "very efficient and a top team" – but even he couldn't have expected THIS, could he…?

With the tie done and dusted, barring an implosion of unprecedented proportions, it would hardly be complacent of the Arsenal manager to ring the changes for next Wednesday’s second leg at the Emirates Stadium. They may trail leaders Liverpool by 13 points, albeit with a match in hand, but the Gunners are not going to let the Premier League title go without a fight and every little helps.

Arsenal’s next league outing takes them to Old Trafford to face Manchester United on Sunday, as they aim to secure consecutive wins in all competitions for the first time since the beginning of February and keep what pressure they can on Liverpool.

Asensio strikes again to make it advantage Villa

Club Brugge 1-3 Aston Villa

Aston Villa made the short hop to Belgium to take on Club Brugge in their first knockout game in Europe’s top-level club competition for 43 years, and they’ll take a two-goal lead back to Villa Park.

It looked like Villa would have to settle for a draw in Bruges, but they seized the initiative in the tie thanks to a late own goal by Brandon Mechele and penalty from Marco Asensio, who carried his immediate Premier League impact since joining on loan from Paris Saint-Germain into the Champions League, a competition he won three times as a Real Madrid player.

Asensio has now scored five goals in his last four matches for Villa, and this was his first Champions League strike since leaving Madrid.

Villa were looking to avenge a 1-0 away defeat to the same opponents in the league phase of the competition in December, when Tyrone Mings’ bizarre handball, after he failed to realise that Emiliano Martinez had taken a short goal-kick, resulted in the penalty from which the hosts scored the decisive goal.

On his return to the Jan Breydel Stadium, Mings didn’t take long to make a markedly more positive contribution, heading the ball down for Leon Bailey to put Unai Emery’s side ahead inside three minutes with just his second goal of the season.

Mings later seemed to defy physics with a full-stretch goal-line clearance in the second half, keeping Villa on level terms and completing his own redemption for that pre-Christmas calamity.

Despite the visitors’ flying start, there was a certain inevitability about Maxim De Cuyper’s equaliser for Brugge nine minutes later. Villa’s clean sheet in their FA Cup fifth-round win over Cardiff City on Friday was their first shutout in 11 matches, and they’ve conceded in 17 of their 19 away outings this term.

As an aside, Villa have now conceded from their opponents’ first shot on target on 18 occasions in 2024/25.

With such porousness, it’s no great surprise that Villa have lost nine out of 19 on their travels this season. However, they have now found the net three times in three separate away games, all of them in the Champions League, having won 3-2 at RB Leipzig in December and 3-0 at Young Boys in September.

Villa are looking good to reach the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time since doing so as European Cup holders back in 1983. And reassuringly for them (forebodingly for Brugge), the second leg takes place at fortress Villa Park, where they’ve been beaten only twice since last March and not since October.

Less fortunately, Villa have just four home league matches remaining this season. The gap from their current 10th position in the Premier League to fifth place, which will be enough for Champions League qualification if English clubs receive an extra spot, is a mere four points. However, Villa still have to hit the road six times, including this Saturday evening’s trip to Brentford.

If this victory, Villa’s first away from home since winning 1-0 at Everton in mid-January, is the cure for their travel sickness, it’s come at just the right time: they’re away in three of their next four Premier League fixtures, as the thrilling race for Europe reaches boiling point.