Morning all.
Before the day, Mikel Arteta had asked the fans travelling to The Emirates for last night’s huge match against Porto, to bring their voices with them. They did, they were brilliant.
Arsenal’s staring eleven was the same as the one which defeated Brentford at the weekend, barring David Raya who returned in place of Aaron Ramsdale.
The game had everything. Crunching tackles, fouls, shirt pulling, time wasting, you name it and much of it went unpunished as the referee clearly intended to let the game flow.
In Portugal, Mikel Arteta’s men didn’t appear ready for the dark arts of Porto’s football, last night though, they were.
Arsenal needed a goal just to ensure their Champions League journey wasn’t necessarily going to end last night and eventually it came. A perfectly executed pass from Martin Odegaard split the Porto defence and played in Leandro Trossard. No messing about as he looked up, saw his chance and took it. A lovely move, a fine finish.
The tie was level on aggregate, all we needed another to go through to the quarterfinals and Arsenal thought they’d had it when Martin Odegaard fired home a loose ball after Kai Havertz, Pepe and Costa got in a pickle in the box. The referee was quick to award Porto a free kick as Havertz was adjudged to have tugged Pepe’s shirt. He did, but the way the game was being officiated, the decision seemed harsh to me. However, had Porto scored in such a way, I’m pretty sure we’d have all berated the officials had they ignored the shirt pull.
Both sides had opportunities to win the tie, Raya made a good save for Arsenal while up the other end Costa prevented substitute Gabriel Jesus from scoring with his first touch of the ball. With the score at a stalemate, the game went into extra time which turned out to be 30 minutes of few chances to avoid the inevitable. Penalties. And so they came. Which team would hold their nerve, which keeper would be the hero. Would there even be a hero or just a villain for the newspapers to focus on? As it turned out, the British football journalists would have to wait another day before writing what I suspect were the thoughts in their head.
Captain Martin Odegaard took and scored Arsenal’s first, Pepe scored his penalty too. Kai Havertz made it 2-1 but then it was advantage Arsenal David Raya pushed Wendell’s spot kick onto the post. Bukayo Saka maintained Arsenal’s advantage by tucking home his penalty home to make it 3-1 before Grujic made it 3-2. Declan Rice scored his penalty to give us a 4-2 lead which meant Porto’s next had to go in if they were to have a chance of winning the tie. Galena took it but David Raya was too good and saved it…
Facts and stats from Arsenal.com:
- We have progressed to the quarter-final of the Champions League for the first time since 2009/10, ending a run of seven consecutive last-16 eliminations in the competition.
- This was the first Champions League knockout match to go to a penalty shootout since the 2016 final between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid.
- Porto have been eliminated from each of their last eight major European knockout ties against English opposition since knocking Manchester United out of the 2003/04 Champions League last 16.
- This was only the second time we were taken to extra-time in a Champions League match, and first since the 2008/09 last 16 against Roma, which they also progressed from after a penalty shootout.
- Leandro Trossard became only the third player to score in each of his first three Champions League home games for us, after Alexis Sanchez and Bukayo Saka.
- Martin Odegaard has seven assists this season in all competitions – this is as many as he provided in the whole of last season for the Gunners.
- There were 74 fouls over the two legs of this last 16 tie – the most in a knockout tie between two sides in the Champions League since the 2015/16 last 16 tie between Bayern Munich and Juventus (76).
The game itself was great, especially for the neutral. I think it was Ally McCoist who said it was an old school battle in a modern world and I think he was right. It had everything, right through to the penalties. There was even handbags between opposing managers and players too but that’s probably because it meant so much to both clubs. For Arsenal, it was huge and togetherness, passion and determination got them through what was an intense and tricky tie. The first player to hug David Raya after his penalty save secure the win was Aaron Ramsdale. What followed was hugs, celebration and just pure joy. Possibly relief too.
The competition gets much tougher now as the so called big teams are left. Who we face is yet to be decided but what this Arsenal have, what Mikel Arteta and his staff and brought to the club is the determination to achieve anything. There’s a good chance we might not reach the semifinal or the final but if we don’t, it won’t be for the lack of trying.
Have a great day guys and if you see a Porto fan, tell them, cheats seldom prosper…
Catch up in the comments.
Morning Rico and all.
Nice write up Rico, The best thing of all unless I missed it was that we came through it with no injuries. repeating what I said on your last section it was great to see Ramsdale celebrate with all his team mates after the win,
Morning Geoff, all.
Yep, a lot of tired legs but no injuries. Great night for the club and fans at the Emirates..
It’s a bit like the morning after the night before , the aftermath of celebrations as the realism kicks in .
Raya is getting all the plaudits and rightly so but for me Odegaard was the man of the match , he never stopped and was doing three men’s work prompting and closing things down .
Marmite Kai was just that, he caused them problems in his positioning but couldn’t trap a landmine and turned on a dustbin lid and lost a couple of chances with poor control and just had to grab a shirt when a good lean on would have had the same effect.
Jorginho our master of the little foul and the ability to win the odd free kick showed that they have both got experience at this level from their Chelsea days and maybe that was to our advantage .
The ball was in play for less than 50% of the 132 minutes apparently so their stifling tactics shown at their place were on display again. Hopefully we get a team in the next round that sees us as an easy tie and come out to play , they might just get a shock.
Still we are through and that’s all that matters , Edu and KSE will be happy more money in the kitty and the team have about 2 weeks to concentrate on the next match which just happens to be City lets hope that the draw doesn’t give us three games against them before the season ends. If we have to play them in this cup let it be the last game because I would fancy our chances more in a single match than two.
Morning Rico, all
Great result, horrible game to watch.
Porto’s tactics were pathetic and the ref aided and abetted them with some bizarre decisions. I thought we needed to win it before the penalty shoot out, but I was wrong. Raya is clearly pretty good at saving penalties.
My lasting memory from the game was Pepe goading the North Bank a number of times after either some play acting, or an industrial piece of defending. Suck it up Pepe!
It feels that a big psychological hurdle has been cleared. Let’s see where we can take this.
Good comment Potter. Odegaard for me too. He was superb from start to finish not boy on the pitch but his engagement with the fans. He asked for more, the fans duly obliged.
Morning Pete, it was a bit like watching Leeds, Wimbledon or Millwall from yesteryear. The difference being we matched them last night. We’ve toughened up since Portugal and Porto didn’t like it.
Can someone send Porto manager a box of tissues, now he reckons they were far better than us in both games.
Morning Rico and Co.
I had a bit of a rewatch mid-morning from about 60 minutes onwards, so extra time and pens and yes the referee did let the game flow but he also ignored a lot of fouls on Arsenal players, fouls that could have allowed us to pressure Porto in their half and penalty area, in his efforts to show a ‘soft touch’ he seemed to be far more beneficial to Porto.
Conceicao creates the mood around his club, their play mirror the cynical manner that he wants the game played, same as Mourinho and same as that anti-football expert at Atletico. We definitely owe him for sure but I’d rather see Atletico eliminated today.
The cynical anti-football wing of the football world cannot it seems deal with their dark arts failing and we saw this with the classless reaction of the Porto coaching staff when they lost, trying their best to spoil the occasion for Arsenal just as they’d tried to spoil the two legs of football. Maybe it’s cultural?
After that experience anyone else will seem like a walk in the park. There’s no point wishing for a favourable draw in the Q/F because from here on they’re all difficult but as long as we avoid Man City I’ll happily take anyone else – Real Madrid vs City would be nice in the next round…
Special mention to Kiwior who is gradually cementing his place at left-back much as Ben White has across the pitch.
Good post and comments .
Kev,
Even though the ref wasn’t perfect or helping us, I think he was the kind of ref needed after that 1st leg ref getting conned so much by Porto. “Let them play” attitude was needed. For a non English ref, that’s unusual.
I think there was again only half the 130 minutes of actual football in play…. but I believe that it would have been even less if it were the 1st ref again. I think we could have been down to two-thirds of the game wasted by extreme cheats Porto.
The commentators last night were hero worshiping Pepe, talking of him as the “perfect professional”, to my mind they left of the most important word “CHEAT”! It was not only the commentators that were in awe of him, the referee was actually apologetic when he finally had to book him.
Maybe Nigel, I’m not sure, to me a foul is a foul, but in the end it doesn’t matter and we’re through and Sergio Conceicao can seethe all the way back to the Iberian peninsula.
Hi Kev, you’re right, of course you are, not every foul was given in our favour. It made the victory on penalties even sweeter. I guess I knew they’d play that way, just as we all did and we knew the officials would let them get on with it. It cheeses me off no end but what can we do? Arteta said his bit and ended up in the book- it’s pathetic imo.
I’d rather a fair, honest ref Nigel. One who spots the cheating, play acting and time wasting and actually deals with it. I get letting the game flow but sometimes, footballers overstep the mark and get away with it. All players I mean and not just Porto who are exceptionally good at overstepping the mark. If that means less time being play then the powers that be should be looking at the reasons why…
In the end the time wasting by Porto probably did us more good than it did them, it gave our players breathing space thus reducing the need for substitutions with all the disruption that they can cause. Porto used every last one and it did them no good whatsoever.
Penalise the clubs who constantly time waste imo, too many do it quite early in the game and it’s robbing fans who pay dear for watching a game.
I also thought our penalty takers were exceptional it’s obvious that a lot of thought and coaching has been going on at London Colney. They were focused and showed no nerves, just a calm determination to put the ball in the net.
Careful with that one Rico, Ben White is a past master at delaying throw ins.
Agree Cicero, perfect penalties. Confident.
Ha ha re White, I do wish he’d speed them up. I’m surprised he’s not been booked more often.
Anyone know who our 5th penalty taker was, had we needed him?
Anybody see the Vinny Jones /Gaza grab moment in the Athletico/Inter match? Eye watering 😉
Jesus I would have thought, Andrew.
Yes I saw it , but the ref and Var didn’t . I thought as the game wore on that both teams were extremely beatable , I would be happy to draw Atletico seeing as how Inter including Alexis were pretty useless on their penalties.
Not to mention that having wound up Conceicao , Simeone would be fun as well .
One way of stopping time wasting to slow down the game is simple, any player who lie or sit down and claim injury must leave the pitch except playing cramping then just continue play untill play stops.
The other thing refs should crack down on is players who run down the side line when throwing the ball back in
New post up now