Morning all.
Call it stupid, naive, sloppy – call it what you want but perhaps I prefer inexperience. 93 minutes on the clock, with just one to go, the only thing Arsenal should be doing is keeping the ball or booting it into row z. A hoof up the pitch was not the best move because it handed possession back to Porto. From then on, the defending wasn’t the best. Neither was the goalkeeping but take nothing away from the strike, it was pretty good.
Mikel Arteta summed up the game well.
On if the boss was surprised by our performance tonight…
No, obviously we’re very disappointed by the way we gave the game away at the end, and not managing that situation well enough, and you get punished in the Champions League – if you cannot win it, you don’t lose it. We really dominated the game, but we lacked purpose, especially in the first half to have much more aggression, to break lines, to play forward, to generate much more threat in their backline. In the second half, there were much better things, and we generated a lot of situations without really creating much from it, but we’ll learn from it. Now it’s clear, it’s half time. If you want to be in the quarter finals, you have to beat your opponent, that’s clear, and that will be the purpose and the plan with all our supporters together to do it.
On how Porto were able to break up our fluidity…
That’s the context of the game, we knew, we prepared [for it]. That’s something the referee has to manage; we cannot do anything about it. And we’re going to have to handle it and play our game.
Porto are and were masters of the dark arts of the game. They did anything and everything to stop Mikel Arteta’s team from playing their game.
Even so, had Kai Havertz taken one of his two headed chances, had William Saliba got a better connection to Bukayo Saka’s corner or had Trossard been able to keep his volley down, things might have been very different. However, football isn’t like that because ifs and buts don’t count. Instead, the stats show we had zero shots on target. 12 corners but we couldn’t make one of them count.
There is bound to be a lot of negativity in the media and Arsenal blogs around the world but I’m not going to add to it. We’re only 1-0 down at half-time.
There’s no guarantee we’ll overturn the deficit in the second leg but I’m sure our finishing will be much better than it was last night. Our all round play will I suspect, be better too. Porto will no doubt play the same tactics, although I use that term loosely, but Mikel Arteta will make sure his players are ready for them. A two week crash course on “learning the dark arts of football” might help… I jest of course as who wants to see Arsenal play football the way Porto do? What’s shameful though is the officials do little to stop it.
The second leg is on the 12th March and The Emirates Stadium will be rocking I’m sure. Who knows, by then, Thomas Partey, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Gabriel Jesus might be back so good options to have from the bench. (lol)
Park that match for now though as next up for Arsenal is Newcastle Utd on Saturday night. The only fixture which matters for now. The players need to use any feeling of disappointment to fuel their Premier League challenge fire. The Emirates will be rocking for this one too I’m sure.
See you in the comments.
Morning rico, good summing up especially as there was not much to write about. Shock to the system really as we had little inventiveness or intensity. Arteta happy with a 0-0 despite what he says, otherwise why not throw on ESR or Nketiah to try and inject something different? Sadly it backfired.
Morning Andrew, thanks.
Porto are a ghastly side but we didn’t help ourselves at the end. I’m hoping the second leg will be better.
I’m surprised ESR didn’t come on. His directness might have given us something different.
Morning Rico
Pretty much as expected from Porto. Imagine having to watch that drivel every week? Makes Roy Hodgson’s tactics look expansive!
It looked to me like we played for a 0-0. Few risks taken. All went well until the last minute when the players got excited, gave the ball away a number of times and lost their shape. Sloppy football and a cheap goal to give away.
Fortunately we have a second leg to rectify the mistake…
Morning Pete.
Agree on Porto, so boring to watch and negative in most of what they do. However, I guess we should take it as a compliment because any other way and they’d have probably lost.
They’ll probably be even more defensive at The Emirates, more dark arts football too.
Good morning Rico and all.
On reflection I don’t think any one player can be blamed for such a poor performance. I think it was due to a collective, maybe subconscious, decision to play for a draw and we came within seconds of achieving just that.
As you say Rico, it’s halftime in the tie, we are one nil down and all to play for in the home leg.
Porto can go on the back burner, while we get on with the chase for the bigger prize. Bring on The Magpies.
Good morning Rico, another great read. Yesterday, i raised an issue about Arteta’s management in knock out games. In Ënglànd, apart from his first year when he won the FA Cup, we have always crashed out in the early rounds of the FA Cup or the League Cup. Even in Europe in the Europa, we come tops at the group stages, omly to crash out in the very first round of the knock out stage.
Now let me shock you. Has Arteta won any knock out Europa games at the Emirates? Check with Villareal, Sporting, etc. But in the league phase, we will top the groups.
The noise about Porto and their disruptive game plan doesn’t excite me either. They knew we were stronger, better and rated higher. So they did what they had to do to get a result. You don’t go toe to toe with a Yokozuno, rather you device your tactics to frustrate him and that way have a chance. Porto were spot on in their tactics, nullifying any threat of our famed attack
Can it be redeemed at the Emirates? Yes it can. But does our recent history support this? No. We have the players. We have the home advantage too. But Arteta must evolve his tactics because i expect Saka and Martinelli to be again targetted. If they could stop us, a team that has scored 21 goals in 5 matches, from registering a single short on target, then 12th March may be another bad day for Gunners.
I earnestly wish the team well.
Great positive piece Rico,
I ventured onto twitter(sorry X) last night,someone said Arteta should be sacked if we go out to this Porto team.
We are still in this tie,I’ve no doubt Porto will park the bus,and all the dirty tricks will come out.
We need a strong Ref at the Emirates,I’ve seen that clown last night described as the Dutch Mike Dean. I like a sporting bet but rarely bet on Arsenal,I would make Arsenal slight favourites. Maybe that is hope more than anything else.
No issues with the line up last night,but only 1 substitute was puzzling,especially with a game on Saturday.
Without away goals counting double the old mantra of draw away and win at home has returned . Unfortunately we got the first bit wrong .
We have to remember that this is the first foray into this type of competition for a lot of our players and our inexperience showed especially in the last 5 minutes.
Even the coaches and the manager should have known that once the injury time board came out it was settle for a draw time . However we were still expansive instead of doing the simple thing and keeping the ball we went into panic mode and just kept giving the ball to them .
Once upon a time before the away goals rule came in the most successful English team were Liverpool who bored the world to success with their non stop back passing .But as Shankly once said ” If we have the ball , the other team can’t score. ”
It’s a lesson to learn but this year it might be too late as the second leg it is now incumbent on us to go forward and leave the spaces for their players to exploit.
Bring back Nicky Bendtner we could do with another hat trick.
Morning Daniel, Cicero.
I don’t think Arteta went for the draw. We weren’t brilliant, much of which was down to Porto but we still created chances, just didn’t take them.
That’s weird Limey, just weird. Why on earth anyone would think losing to Porto is a sackable offence can only be out for attention. I too think we’ll overturn the tie at home.
Yes probably a Spurs supporter.
Or Liverpool, Newcastle ,West ham or in fact any of the haters.
Rico,
Credit to you on the scouting report you provided. It turned out to be very accurate as to their ability to press, and high up also. It was really giving us problems. The ref was a sucker for all of their tricks of falling to the ground, even when they were literally not touched. If we get a ref like that for the second leg, they will keep doing it, and it will be hard to overturn this.
As bad as English refs are, we would have won yesterday under premier league foul standards.
Just a bit of reading really Nigel. Scouting is a tad generous 😂
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13112463/Jamie-Carragher-celebration-Liverpool-Luton-Arsenal.html
Carragher has made himself look even more stupid than he is already.
I read some were, someone claiming Arteta ignored our bench players and only used one, is this true as it doesn’t make sense.
I don’t know anything about Porto but the fact that they made it to the final 16 shows they are no easy beats.
So someone wants Arteta sacked for loosing to Porto in the dying seconds.
I’m guessing the same person would want him hung if we ever get knocked out of the FA cup by a 2nd division team 😂
New post up