| While the first-leg shellacking Arsenal dished out to PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands meant that Wednesday night’s return leg was predictably low on drama, there was at least one moment of highly performative nonsense for fans at the Emirates to enjoy. Handed a rare start by Mikel Arteta, Oleksandr Zinchenko repaid his manager by firing his side ahead with a terrific strike but very pointedly refused to celebrate his first ever Bigger Cup goal for reasons that initially seemed to baffle his own teammates, PSV’s players, both sets of supporters and anyone like Football Daily with so little going on in their life that they’d tuned in to watch this 90-minute long foregone conclusion unfold on TV. It later turned out that Oleksandr had actually made 14 appearances for PSV during a loan spell eight years ago and while his resolve not to celebrate his excellent opener out of respect for his sort-of former side is to be commended, even the handful of PSV’s travelling fans who had some vague recollection of his time with them almost certainly wouldn’t have cared if he’d cartwheeled the length of the pitch in delight. He had, after all, just put his side 8-1 up on aggregate in a tie that would eventually finish 9-3. Pulling one back for PSV 12 minutes later, Ivan Perisic also added to the gaiety of the evening, rushing to extract the ball from the net, before sprinting back to the halfway line in the traditional David Platt style in a manner that screamed “Just six more lads, we can do this!” Next up for Arsenal are the reigning Bigger Cup champions, a team Arteta says his side are “very capable” of beating until such time as they inevitably don’t because, well … they’re Real Madrid and as Atlético discovered once again on Wednesday night, no matter how well you play against them, actually knocking them out of this competition is more difficult than catching fog in a net. Meanwhile in Birmingham, Aston Villa’s progress to a quarter-final appointment with Paris Saint-Germain could scarcely have been more straightforward. Going into the second leg of their tie against Club Brugge with a two-goal cushion they probably didn’t deserve, Unai Emery’s side spanked another three past their Belgian visitors without reply to set up a meeting with a club with which the Spaniard has unfinished business. One can scarcely imagine a more PSG exit from Bigger Cup than one engineered by one of their current players, Marco Asensio, and a much-maligned former manager who unfairly became a laughing stock in Paris during PSG’s recent bantz era. If Villa do conquer the French champions and advance to Bigger Cup semi-finals, neither man is likely to suffer Zinchenko-esque levels of reticence when it comes to celebrating. | 