MIKEL Arteta is preparing his players for “another big mountain to climb” as Arsenal await to find out who they will play in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Shot-stopper David Raya proved the hero on Tuesday night, saving two spot-kicks as the Gunners beat Porto 4-2 on penalties to advance to the last eight of Europe’s premier club competition for the first time since 2010.

The draw for both the quarter-finals and semi-finals will take place at UEFA’s headquarters in Switzerland tomorrow (Friday) at 11am UK time, allowing optimistic fans to plot out their potential route to the Wembley final in June.

Arsenal won’t have it easy, however. The majority of Europe’s elite teams are still in the competition, including Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. Reflecting on the Gunners reaching the quarters, Arteta said: “It’s another big step, especially as a club. The last seven years we haven’t been in this competition, the last 14 we haven’t been where we are today. That’s the difficulty of it. The best thing is we are not satisfied, we want more and we are going to try to go through to the next round for sure.

“Now when I sit at home I’m going to look at the teams who we have to play and you start another big mountain to climb.”

The Arsenal boss admitted that, win or lose against Porto, he was ready to pull the positives. The Spaniard added: “If you are out you think one less competition, we can focus on the league, more time to prepare for games. But now the energy that it [winning] brings amongst the squad, amongst the club – it’s really powerful.

“We all deserve a few days off now to recharge the batteries.”

The FA Cup takes centre stage this weekend, followed by an international break – meaning that Arsenal now don’t play again until their mammoth match away to Manchester City on Sunday, March 31.

The Premier League leaders will go into that game just one point ahead of City in the table.

Bukayo Saka looked somewhat bamboozled to be facing questions on the City showdown just minutes after scoring a penalty to help Arsenal see off Porto at the Emirates.

Former Gunner-turn-TV-pundit Martin Keown asked on TNT Sports if the north Londoners can now beat City.

A confident Saka replied: “Yeah, we can. We can. Right now, we’re top of the league and we’re into the quarter-finals of the Champions League as we go into the international break. So that gives us a lot of momentum, a lot of belief that we can go to the Etihad and get a good result.

“I am buzzing. I am just happy we are going through to the quarter-finals. It was not the best performance for me personally, but I am so proud of the team.”