Inter – Arsenal, Getty Images January 20, 2026, 11:59 p.m

The main round matches of the UEFA Champions League in the middle of January are the new normal that the organizers of the tournament introduced us to a year ago, and the updated format in the end seemed to suit everyone so much that the expectations for the resumption of the competition were high. It is not surprising – the last two rounds are still to be played, so everything will be decided in the near future.

And when two teams with significant previous gains in the standings meet in the penultimate round, the interest of fans instantly focuses on this game. In the case of the seventh round, the fans at Giuseppe Meazza were lucky to witness a duel between Inter Milan, which initially gained excellent momentum, but then suffered two consecutive defeats, and London Arsenal, which does not stop either in the domestic or international arenas.

However, Christian Kivu’s team will definitely not be able to claim the beginning of the reported confrontation. Because the Nerazzurri couldn’t deal with the attacks of their rivals and eventually conceded a quick goal in the 10th minute. Timber’s strike on the right wing of the penalty area may not have posed a threat to Sommer’s goal, but Jesus, in an acrobatic jump in front of the goalkeeper, did everything to keep the goalkeeper from having an impact on the episode.

However, the hosts of the field managed to recover from a completely natural missed shot quite quickly, and scored another one from their own side in response. Suchic’s shot from a rebound in the half circle in front of someone else’s possession in the right nine turned out to be very solid, so the Milan team even managed to stabilize the situation on the football field for a certain time and in some ways even more interesting options were offered in the attack.

But Arsenal found another successful corner kick on 31 minutes when Saka Trossard’s cross was headed into an empty net for Jesus at the far post, and Inter’s defense looked unprepared for the level of performance from their opponents in that episode. This goal allowed Arsenal to end the first half calmly and try to start the second half vigorously, and there too the home side had problems during various standards.

However, a substitution with the appearance of Esposito in the attack, who calmly imposed a power struggle on the entire Arsenal defense and even had several quite good moments for shots, but did not hit the goal plane, could have played quite well in favor of Inter. Perhaps Pio lacked a bit of luck, which cannot be said about the moment in the 84th minute with the participation of Jokeres, who initially gave a very awkward pass to the back of Saka in front of someone else’s penalty area, but immediately himself corrected the rebound from his partner, delivering a powerful shot into the upper right corner. On this, the series of the “gunners” got its continuation, as well as the series of defeats of the “snakes”.

In the next round, Inter Milan will visit Borussia Dortmund, and London Arsenal will host Kazakhstan’s Kairat.