Champions Bayern Munich ease past Arsenal despite penalty miss

Munich: Arsenal ended Bayern Munich`s long winning streak when they held the Bavarians to a 1-1 draw in the Champions League on Tuesday but it was not enough to stop the holders reaching the quarter-finals 3-1 on aggregate.

Bastian Schweinsteiger put Bayern ahead in the 55th minute of the last-16 second leg but Lukas Podolski stunned the Allianz Arena when he fired into the roof of the net two minutes later. Podolski`s goal gave Arsenal a glimmer of hope although the Germans played keep-ball in the closing stages as the visitors ran out of gas. Bayern had won 13 games in a row in all competitions since a 3-2 home defeat by Manchester City in the Champions League in December. They could have made it 14 victories in succession but substitute Thomas Mueller had a stoppage-time penalty saved by Arsenal keeper Lukasz Fabianski. Bayern spent most of the first half probing a resilient Arsenal defence that just about managed to hold out. It was always touch and go for the Londoners especially when Franck Ribery ran free down the left and sent the ball into the middle where Arjen Robben failed to connect properly. Javi Martinez had a goal disallowed for offside in the 26th minute and Robben had two dangerous efforts cut out by defenders as Bayern tried to turn the screw. Fabianski came to the rescue when he got down to save Mario Goetze`s low shot seconds before the break. Bayern finally broke through 10 minutes after the restart when Ribery sneaked into the area and laid the ball off for Schweinsteiger to finish from eight metres. The referee surprisingly waved play on even though Podolski seemed to push Philipp Lahm in the area two minutes later and the Arsenal forward went on to hammer the ball home. Bayern keeper Manuel Neuer then had to rush out of his box to head the ball clear after Tomas Rosicky tried to send Olivier Giroud clean through. Neuer had the home fans on edge again when he sent a clearance straight to Giroud but the Bundesliga leaders quickly regrouped.