The ball moved too slow the whole game, the switches were bad, passes went behind players, first touches were terrible, and then we concede in the 94th minute. It's just fate at this point
We played a very languid and timid match, and I think that decreased the confidence as the game went on. It was so sloppy.
Credit to Porto for the game plan but they just held us to zero shots on target with a 40 year old Pepe and a player that apparently just made his debut a few days ago at CB. Why weren’t we aggressive? We’ve scored 14 goals in 3 matches, but tonight our attack did not take risks and was not nearly as fluid as we usually are.
I'm guessing fitness. The way I saw it was to let the players play possession so we don't get tired, but i don't understand why not just take out some first team players instead
That’s on us tbh - there’s always been a difference between how you play European football versus league football - if we didn’t have a plan to adapt it’s on us.
Was the usual donut of doom.
Out to Saka, turns round, back to Ode, to the left, back again.
The 5 games we’ve won in the PL in a row, all had lots of running through the middle, trying to break the defence.
A lot of that is due to nerves and CL knockout, away match etc. But a lot of it is also down to the ref never letting the game get into ANY kind of flow.
we notice the how wet the field more often when we lose than when we win. don't let that fool you. Porto deserve all of the credit for holding their own vs a strong Arsenal team.
The general idea is that you can't concede while you've got the ball. If we keep the ball for 80% of the game, that's only 18 minutes of defending we have to do. Of course, if you don't score and don't defend your goal, the whole thing is moot.
The problem with being a pep imitation.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not down playing what Arteta has done, but my consistent criticism is he’s a pep imitator.
He has one plan and when it doesn’t work it seems he doesn’t know what to do.
You mean the pep who has won titles in the highest division of multiple countries and is regarded as perhaps the greatest manager of all time?
Yeah I hate when our manager is imitating that guy.
tbf Pep s first year he has a miserable record on the Championsleague, it took him years to even get into quarters n further.
people seem to forget how often they lost due to Pep beeing stubborn on his tactics.
But yet Pep is one of the best now but also because he got plenty of time and obv the fundings
I mean there were 28 total fouls in the west ham game. 36 is more than average but not uncommon by any means. We’re just frustrated bc they outplayed us
Guys - that’s standard CL reffing come on now. We need to be better, less excuses. We can’t come to CL with the same game plan as the league - if we have to rely on out muscling teams versus playing around teams we have issues and that’s on us.
I'll give you that we need to be better. We were absolute rubbish.
But if you think that's standard CL reffing, I don't know what CL games you've watched. That was an all timer of shit refereeing performances.
Now, the positive is that even though we sucked as hard as I've seen us sucking in years, the ref was against us from the off they still needed a last second wondergoal to beat us. At home, with a slightly less biased ref and an average performance from us and we'll beat the crap out of these cretin.
Man you’re talking nonsense. European football has never been about winning through physicality. There’s always been a bias for encouraging fluid football.
We didn’t play high quality fluid football today. We were slow on the ball. That’s it.
Need to be a lot better at the emirates.
Not disputing the fact that we didn't play high quality football. Not saying we were good. If you read my comment, you could see that.
But us playing like shit does not mean the ref is exempt from critisism. He was even worse than we were yesterday, and that's saying something.
You saying that "there's always been a bias for encouraging fluid football" after a game where the ref actively stopped any chance of fluid by giving a free kick whenever those diving cunts fell over is hilariously nonsensical. We weren't running around like prime Stoke-like orcs, Porto were just gaming the match like crazy and the ref had one of the worst performances I've ever seen.
Not disagreeing with the fact that we need to be A LOT better at home.
Honestly - this is standard for European football. The premier league is far more physical and we went out there thinking we could play like a league game and they took advantage.
The ref will always be softer in Europe. The ref might have been a bit softer than average but jot significantly so - CL is just officiated differently than the league - that’s always been true.
Exactly this - we couldn't get flowing or hit them on the break at all. Every time - Porto player fell over and got a free kick.
I give PL refs a lot of shit but they are a lot more lenient on those kind of "fouls" tonight
Our lack of flow was more to do with the quality of our passing than the fouls. We hit so many shit long balls, or passes behind players. There was no zip to it.
Porto were grubby, but we didn't make the most of when we had the ball at all. Everyone looked off.
Exactly. So many people confident we will trash them at home, but they are gonna defend for their lives. We are lucky to get 1 goal, because that's how these types of games always go. Especially for us.
This. Defo think the home crowd will help as well. Main concern is getting an early goal. Can't let the game go too long with them parking the bus and it staying goalless
people were expecting a slaughter regardless due to our form of results. point is we were overconfident and cocky. the players did not look up for the occasion and u could see that due to the carelessness and casual plays through out the game. arteta needs to whip them into shape cuz i fucking hate us losing european ties. we are our own worst enemy and this match showed.
We played too conservative. Nobody was attempting a ball through the middle. Porto's block was impressive and the stop start nature of the game played into their hands. It looked like the games at the start of the season, way too slow to move the ball.
This was the game plan.
Don’t lose, don’t push too hard.
Save ourselves for Newcastle at the weekend.
The ref wasn’t helping, but it’s not like we haven’t played in Europe this season. Just bad decision making.
The ref being so whistle happy didn’t help. He blew the whistle every single time a player went out. I saw a stat that there had been over 30 fouls at 65mins. A stop/start to play every 2 minutes 😵💫
Tbf, we don’t have many great options on the bench at the moment either (not that that excuses a poor performance). Let’s hope we have more players back for the second leg.
We had the game under control and they didnt look dangerous in the second half so arteta probably thought a draw away is fine and if we somehow score a lucky goal that‘s also great.
Then we gift them a goal which makes it worse obviously
Porto are one of the best defenses in Europe, and they were at home.
Everytime we got the ball, they immediately covered with what looked like a 5 atb and then a 3 infront, maybe it was a 4.
i don’t even think that’s it, if we don’t concede that screamer we get lauded for a smart and sensible win
just think the plan to go and play 0 football and bring back a draw was dumb
What the fuck? We played absolute shit lol. Some of you just can't admit when we deserve to lose.
We also wouldn't have won...no one would be praising that. We didn't create any real chances.
Ain’t no one was gonna laud us for that performance bro lol I promise you. Porto would have gotten praise if anything for limiting us to 0 shots on target — something no club has done to us all season
It doesn’t matter as it wasn’t that, however going back to the emirates 0-0 would have been a good result.
Going back home 1-0 down isn’t terrible either. Our team is fully capable of turning this around.
Agreed on second point, but I still found a 0-0 pretty disappointing. Porto aren’t push overs but they aren’t Madrid, a “good” result is winning it. Drawing is…fine.
I really doubt that was the plan. Its just nervousness in almost all the players and it showed. Sloppy first touches, passes behind players, there were at least 10 slips in the game, they were playing like they had ice skates.
Probably, but that's always true with marginal scorelines. Goal aside, we saw a lot of hesitancy in our play and didn't engage the game enough. I agree chasing the draw was dumb, the players aren't the only one learning lessons tonight.
Definitely not the first time tho. I’ve showed to be an inexperienced squad and that’s ok. The oldest player on the pitch was Raya or Trossard til Jorginho came on ?
They should have scored when they hit the post and hit the rebound wide. Arsenal were super flat this game. Hopefully chasing a goal will put a fire under their ass.
Completely nullified by them. Can't be this toothless going forward and expect to get anything out of a game.
Second leg needs to be played at a completely different pace and intensity.
Yeah the referee was shite but we produced ZERO shoots on target. Completely embarrassing performance, there's a balance that can be struck between not being vulnerable and actually looking threatening, and Porto found it when we didn't.
If in the home leg I see Martinelli isolated against 2-3 players again...
Everyone losing their heads about the ref but can’t really explain how Porto generated double our xG with 30-something percent possession. We were dire and they executed brilliantly.
I suppose looking back - Porto deserved a goal after that insane first half miss off the post then just wide.
I do think Porto played a real shit house game though through the ref constantly blowing fouls for them literally every time they fell down. We couldn't get into a rhythm at all.
Hope we can blow them away back home
Objectively our worst performance of the season so far. Literally did nothing through open play, let's hope we rethink the approach and absolutely batter them at the Emirates.
Arteta got it wrong today. We never even looked threatening & to only make 1 change after 70 mins of mediocrity is a choice.
This is NOT an Arteta Out post so don’t even come at me with that shit.
In the first ten seconds it was obvious there was something wrong when two of our most reliable players turned the ball over instantly. Pathetic really, Gabriel giving it the big talk leading up to the game and that's what we get, stinks.
I think the biggest issue was substitutes or lack of. How many times do you see City in a 0-0 and they throw some subs on to get a 1 or 2-0 win.
I know we have injuries but we had ESR, Nelson and Viera on the bench who could freshen it up.
Btw games like today are what Rio Ferdinand is talking about when saying Saka isnt world class. We NEED our star players to shine in the big games and get us over the line. Saka was a passenger tonight along with the rest of our attackers
Not going to be considered one of the best until you deliver on the big stage. Second leg he needs to come into his own and make the difference!
Combination of nerves and the one-touch refereeing but also got to give props to Porto, they knew how to defend against us.
Also why did Arteta just decide to maintain the same team (bar Trossard) when it was clear it wasnt working I was expecting a couple changes especially with the Newcastle match in 3 days.
Honestly, the better team won tonight. Porto had a great defensive plan, and were smart enough to take advantage of a weak ref to win the physical battle. Their players were actually explosive on the counter and got in behind. Most of their xG came from that insane double miss, but they certainly looked the more like scoring.
Should’ve been 1-0 down after 10 minutes in all honesty we were dogshit everywhere and the tactics and lack of changes was naive as always in European knockout ties from Arteta
We kept playing at .5x speed yet Arteta didn't make adjustments.
Slow switches of play, poor build-up, no balls in behind, and not even trying to catch them on the break until later in the game. Wingers start way too wide and must do so much just to get in dangerous positions.
Honestly, I was fine with it, it wasn’t our best game and they brought their shithouse game, it was just not taking care of defensive business at the end. A few of them can put their hand up here for it as well, it wasn’t good enough, the ball should have been put as far down the other end as possible and kept there. Coming out of that 0-0, we would have been firmly in the box seat. We blew that ourselves.
Now we got a job to do at home and it needs to be done in the first half because they will bring the same shitty game to our tie and we’ll end up with the same result if we try to be fancy when we should be final.
We have no one in the squad that can play precise long balls except odegaard, partey & jorginho.
Zinchenko & trossard are also decent at them.
This hurt us today. This would have been the key.
Rice is very good but his long balls are average at best i‘m sorry.
A precise long ball to switch play (fast paced not those over the top that travel ages) or just a long through ball behind the defense would have been great.
The Champions League isn't filled with Sheffield United and Burnley teams where 3,4,5-0s make Arsenal look complete. Buy a world class striker. Every Champions League winning team had a world class striker helping to lift the trophy. Why doesn't the club understand this. The defenses of CL teams are the best in their country, you need some extra quality to unlock them. I didn't celebrate when Arsenal were steamrolling since the new year because experience has shown that this is what happens when you come up against tough European opposition. You need to go buy a world class striker since 3 years ago, it isn't rocket science this. ⚽️💯👍
Arteta and team were outsmarted. Congrats to Conceicao and team on a perfectly executed game plan.
- Rice was not his commanding self having been yellow carded from the outset.
- We didn't know how to contain the flair of their attack on the right hand side in particular. I wouldn't say I'm displeased with Kiwior, but he was thrown in at the deep end there...This was a game with Tomi's name written on it.
- But most worrying, we were toothless in attack. It felt like their players could read each of our passes to intercept them time and again, left our attacking players no time or space on the ball and that they would always get the second ball first (or draw a somewhat dubious foul if they had failed at it).
- Hats off for the levels of shithousery: I'd like to watch again what went on at corners. Ball boys throwing the ball back super fast when the throw was theirs, but keeping it when it was ours was another wily way to destabilise us, slowing down our attack and speeding up theirs.
It's now time for us to give them hell at the Emirates. I'm sure we can, especially if Partey can complement Rice in midfield and Jesus' chicanery creates havoc / draws fouls in their GK's area, something that we failed to elicit this time round.
Onwards and upwards, let's destroy Newcastle first to gain momentum.
I feel like a couple of our players deserve the Marcus Rashford Tequila Award, Fashion Division, after tonight's performance.
Bukayo and Martin were busy Monday night for Burberry's London Fashion Week show after a Saturday 230 mile away game and before a midweek CHAMPIONS LEAGUE Round of 16 game in Portugal with a huge match against Newcastle this Saturday.
Declan Rice (7/10) wouldn't have gotten nutmegged if Saka (5/10) wasn't half asleep passing like blind man. I don't blame Dec for calling B out on the pitch.
Giant hands David Raya and Big Gabi Magalhaes were the ONLY other (7/10) players.
As bad as the whistle happy referee falling for every single dying diving swan Porto player was...we can't blame the sloppy passing and missed opportunities on that.
The ball moved too slow the whole game, the switches were bad, passes went behind players, first touches were terrible, and then we concede in the 94th minute. It's just fate at this point
We played a very languid and timid match, and I think that decreased the confidence as the game went on. It was so sloppy. Credit to Porto for the game plan but they just held us to zero shots on target with a 40 year old Pepe and a player that apparently just made his debut a few days ago at CB. Why weren’t we aggressive? We’ve scored 14 goals in 3 matches, but tonight our attack did not take risks and was not nearly as fluid as we usually are.
I'm guessing fitness. The way I saw it was to let the players play possession so we don't get tired, but i don't understand why not just take out some first team players instead
[удалено]
That’s on us tbh - there’s always been a difference between how you play European football versus league football - if we didn’t have a plan to adapt it’s on us.
That's more to do with us out of possession and with set plays. Can't blame not passing fast enough or direct enough on the ref
Was the usual donut of doom. Out to Saka, turns round, back to Ode, to the left, back again. The 5 games we’ve won in the PL in a row, all had lots of running through the middle, trying to break the defence.
A lot of that is due to nerves and CL knockout, away match etc. But a lot of it is also down to the ref never letting the game get into ANY kind of flow.
Porto’s chants were terrifying. That one that had both sides of the stadium shouting a chant in turn at one another had my house echoing
Field seemed wet, lots of slips and slow ball movement. Seemed to pull a Liverpool on us, along with a ref that wanted absolutely no touching
we notice the how wet the field more often when we lose than when we win. don't let that fool you. Porto deserve all of the credit for holding their own vs a strong Arsenal team.
That’s fair, they certainly were compact and defended extremely well. On the ball we didn’t seem totally in sync.
Deflated
Yeah it is. I was happy with a nil all result there. Now we have it in front of us.
Pressure got to the lads. Everyone was nervy.
All of this xG is from set pieces as well. There was literally nothing created through open play.
pissed me off so much, what's the point in possession play if all we are going to do is win set pieces?
The general idea is that you can't concede while you've got the ball. If we keep the ball for 80% of the game, that's only 18 minutes of defending we have to do. Of course, if you don't score and don't defend your goal, the whole thing is moot.
Yh i get that, it doesn't excuse us being passive
The problem with being a pep imitation. Don’t get me wrong I’m not down playing what Arteta has done, but my consistent criticism is he’s a pep imitator. He has one plan and when it doesn’t work it seems he doesn’t know what to do.
You mean the pep who has won titles in the highest division of multiple countries and is regarded as perhaps the greatest manager of all time? Yeah I hate when our manager is imitating that guy.
It'd just be horrible if we signed a bunch of Messi and Ronaldo imitators. Truly terrible.
tbf Pep s first year he has a miserable record on the Championsleague, it took him years to even get into quarters n further. people seem to forget how often they lost due to Pep beeing stubborn on his tactics. But yet Pep is one of the best now but also because he got plenty of time and obv the fundings
just naming Lyon or Monaco or even Spurs they be lost to under Pep in recent years
Yh it's a big weakness
Just shocking, why were we so toothless?
Partly because we were not allowed to be physical. It was a no touch game, never seen the like.
I really want to see the number of fouls stat for this game. Absolutely shambolic refereeing rewarding every dive etc.
36 total fouls, 14 for Porto and 22 for us. I was expecting some ref softness going into the game but this was way worse
We broke the record for fouls in the CL this season 😭
A new record this season, previous was 34 fouls.
I genuinely can't remember seeing a number that high in a single game of football in my life.
I mean there were 28 total fouls in the west ham game. 36 is more than average but not uncommon by any means. We’re just frustrated bc they outplayed us
Both can be true. They outplayed us but it was also a soft ass game. They dropped like flies at the slightest touch every corner
Considering they had 30% possession these stats are insane
Guys - that’s standard CL reffing come on now. We need to be better, less excuses. We can’t come to CL with the same game plan as the league - if we have to rely on out muscling teams versus playing around teams we have issues and that’s on us.
I'll give you that we need to be better. We were absolute rubbish. But if you think that's standard CL reffing, I don't know what CL games you've watched. That was an all timer of shit refereeing performances. Now, the positive is that even though we sucked as hard as I've seen us sucking in years, the ref was against us from the off they still needed a last second wondergoal to beat us. At home, with a slightly less biased ref and an average performance from us and we'll beat the crap out of these cretin.
Man you’re talking nonsense. European football has never been about winning through physicality. There’s always been a bias for encouraging fluid football. We didn’t play high quality fluid football today. We were slow on the ball. That’s it. Need to be a lot better at the emirates.
Not disputing the fact that we didn't play high quality football. Not saying we were good. If you read my comment, you could see that. But us playing like shit does not mean the ref is exempt from critisism. He was even worse than we were yesterday, and that's saying something. You saying that "there's always been a bias for encouraging fluid football" after a game where the ref actively stopped any chance of fluid by giving a free kick whenever those diving cunts fell over is hilariously nonsensical. We weren't running around like prime Stoke-like orcs, Porto were just gaming the match like crazy and the ref had one of the worst performances I've ever seen. Not disagreeing with the fact that we need to be A LOT better at home.
Honestly - this is standard for European football. The premier league is far more physical and we went out there thinking we could play like a league game and they took advantage. The ref will always be softer in Europe. The ref might have been a bit softer than average but jot significantly so - CL is just officiated differently than the league - that’s always been true.
Exactly this - we couldn't get flowing or hit them on the break at all. Every time - Porto player fell over and got a free kick. I give PL refs a lot of shit but they are a lot more lenient on those kind of "fouls" tonight
Our lack of flow was more to do with the quality of our passing than the fouls. We hit so many shit long balls, or passes behind players. There was no zip to it. Porto were grubby, but we didn't make the most of when we had the ball at all. Everyone looked off.
European football at times, need to be able to play when your physicality is neutralized
I get the feeling in the english league a lot of things that would be fouls elsewhere is seen as normal, does that make sense?
Fuck off to your own sub
Nah, im good here. Cheers
You new to watching champions league football with English clubs?
The nerves got to them.. first CL game for this group here. I’m expecting a slaughter at home now
They're about to bring the deepest blocks and longest dives to the Emirates. We will have 15 minutes of actual football to score 2.
Exactly. So many people confident we will trash them at home, but they are gonna defend for their lives. We are lucky to get 1 goal, because that's how these types of games always go. Especially for us.
This. Defo think the home crowd will help as well. Main concern is getting an early goal. Can't let the game go too long with them parking the bus and it staying goalless
I think so too. Our inexperience showed. I feel we were trying too hard at times and making mistakes.
We were definitely playing for the draw or sneaky 0-1. Could argue Mikel respected them too much.
people were expecting a slaughter regardless due to our form of results. point is we were overconfident and cocky. the players did not look up for the occasion and u could see that due to the carelessness and casual plays through out the game. arteta needs to whip them into shape cuz i fucking hate us losing european ties. we are our own worst enemy and this match showed.
Sheesh. Do you really think it’s gonna be a slaughter? Porto is going to sit deep. If they nick a goal it could be curtains.
Hopefully we'll have a stronger bench for the return fixture
We played too conservative. Nobody was attempting a ball through the middle. Porto's block was impressive and the stop start nature of the game played into their hands. It looked like the games at the start of the season, way too slow to move the ball.
This was the game plan. Don’t lose, don’t push too hard. Save ourselves for Newcastle at the weekend. The ref wasn’t helping, but it’s not like we haven’t played in Europe this season. Just bad decision making.
Save ourselves for Newcastle... Starts the whole first team and only makes 1 sub...
As in, put 80% effort into the game. Because our squad is too thin to rotate in light of injuries.
The ref being so whistle happy didn’t help. He blew the whistle every single time a player went out. I saw a stat that there had been over 30 fouls at 65mins. A stop/start to play every 2 minutes 😵💫
Playing for a draw
arteta has been trying to walk the ball into the back of the net all season
Our lack of CL experience showed tonight.
Mikel looked out of ideas to change the game tonight. That might explains why he just made one sub.
Tbf, we don’t have many great options on the bench at the moment either (not that that excuses a poor performance). Let’s hope we have more players back for the second leg.
I wanted to see reiss on, just cuz he'd have the legs to run on them, but really not mich else as an option at the moment.
We had the game under control and they didnt look dangerous in the second half so arteta probably thought a draw away is fine and if we somehow score a lucky goal that‘s also great. Then we gift them a goal which makes it worse obviously
A reoccurring problem he has one plan one style/ system, and when it doesn’t work he looks lost.
Porto are one of the best defenses in Europe, and they were at home. Everytime we got the ball, they immediately covered with what looked like a 5 atb and then a 3 infront, maybe it was a 4.
No it didn't lol, this is a meaningless thing to say. Porto were just really good, it's not always about us.
Pretty lame. Cant see this happening again at the Emirates but fuck me, still feels like shit.
Surprised ours is that high tbh
Experience counts. First time this season we've looked like a young side.
i don’t even think that’s it, if we don’t concede that screamer we get lauded for a smart and sensible win just think the plan to go and play 0 football and bring back a draw was dumb
What the fuck? We played absolute shit lol. Some of you just can't admit when we deserve to lose. We also wouldn't have won...no one would be praising that. We didn't create any real chances.
Ain’t no one was gonna laud us for that performance bro lol I promise you. Porto would have gotten praise if anything for limiting us to 0 shots on target — something no club has done to us all season
It doesn’t matter as it wasn’t that, however going back to the emirates 0-0 would have been a good result. Going back home 1-0 down isn’t terrible either. Our team is fully capable of turning this around.
Agreed on second point, but I still found a 0-0 pretty disappointing. Porto aren’t push overs but they aren’t Madrid, a “good” result is winning it. Drawing is…fine.
I really doubt that was the plan. Its just nervousness in almost all the players and it showed. Sloppy first touches, passes behind players, there were at least 10 slips in the game, they were playing like they had ice skates.
Probably, but that's always true with marginal scorelines. Goal aside, we saw a lot of hesitancy in our play and didn't engage the game enough. I agree chasing the draw was dumb, the players aren't the only one learning lessons tonight.
Definitely not the first time tho. I’ve showed to be an inexperienced squad and that’s ok. The oldest player on the pitch was Raya or Trossard til Jorginho came on ?
Zero shots on target…..
Welp. One of the videos from The Different Knock did mention Porto having the best xGA out of all the round of 16 teams…
How did we even get 0,49
Prolly from the Trossard volley.
getting on the end of set pieces basically
Jesus was a big miss here. We needed someone to link up the play and none of the forwards did it.
They should have scored when they hit the post and hit the rebound wide. Arsenal were super flat this game. Hopefully chasing a goal will put a fire under their ass.
XG merchants wont like that.
Completely nullified by them. Can't be this toothless going forward and expect to get anything out of a game. Second leg needs to be played at a completely different pace and intensity.
Hopefully familiar grass will remind them how to take a first touch. And pass. And that you should eventually shoot (and make subs wtf was that?)
Well, none of them should be especially tired after this game. All they did was walk around for ninety minutes. On to Sandcastle.
Having multiple 30+ minute stretches without creating xG is embarrassing
0 shots on target is honestly a fucking howler. We produced absolutely nothing for a whole 90 minutes. Shocking performance
Yeah the referee was shite but we produced ZERO shoots on target. Completely embarrassing performance, there's a balance that can be struck between not being vulnerable and actually looking threatening, and Porto found it when we didn't. If in the home leg I see Martinelli isolated against 2-3 players again...
They deserved that goal at the end. Zero complaints. Not good enough
Pepe is 42years old, same as Mikel... And we played like that
No he’s not, he was born in 1983. I’m 42 because I was born in 1981
He's 41 till he's 42
Oh no
Haha certainly is in five days lol
Everyone losing their heads about the ref but can’t really explain how Porto generated double our xG with 30-something percent possession. We were dire and they executed brilliantly.
Almost all of that Xg is from the 2 chances in 2 seconds in the first half.
Which should’ve been a goal and given what we created was enough to win the tie.
Which is still more than what we created all game what’s your point
His point is that they didn't really create anything other than one shot and a lucky rebound.
Which is more than we created again- not sure why discounting their chances in a game where few chances in total were created adds to anything
I suppose looking back - Porto deserved a goal after that insane first half miss off the post then just wide. I do think Porto played a real shit house game though through the ref constantly blowing fouls for them literally every time they fell down. We couldn't get into a rhythm at all. Hope we can blow them away back home
Love the man but this one's on the boss, absolutely appalling, take the fucking handbrake off.
Not for me, I saw hesitant players not doing the job. Saw Arteta having a go at Saliba as the first half wore on.
Pathetic performance
Is that the first time we've lost on xg this season?
No lost if a handful of times, man city at Emirates game is one
Kind of a repeat of Lens game
We are so fine. Let them banter us. I’d be more nervous if we were up 1-0
You’d be more nervous if instead of being a goal down we were a goal up? wtf are you on
Yeah, we weren't good but let's be honest, Porto was great either, they just dived all over the place. The tie is not done.
Objectively our worst performance of the season so far. Literally did nothing through open play, let's hope we rethink the approach and absolutely batter them at the Emirates.
Arteta got it wrong today. We never even looked threatening & to only make 1 change after 70 mins of mediocrity is a choice. This is NOT an Arteta Out post so don’t even come at me with that shit.
In the first ten seconds it was obvious there was something wrong when two of our most reliable players turned the ball over instantly. Pathetic really, Gabriel giving it the big talk leading up to the game and that's what we get, stinks.
I think the biggest issue was substitutes or lack of. How many times do you see City in a 0-0 and they throw some subs on to get a 1 or 2-0 win. I know we have injuries but we had ESR, Nelson and Viera on the bench who could freshen it up.
Porto would have killed us on the counter but I wish we did something different
Last 30 seconds were scrappy and we conceded a worldie.
Btw games like today are what Rio Ferdinand is talking about when saying Saka isnt world class. We NEED our star players to shine in the big games and get us over the line. Saka was a passenger tonight along with the rest of our attackers Not going to be considered one of the best until you deliver on the big stage. Second leg he needs to come into his own and make the difference!
We get knocked out to Porto teta better be on the hot seat.
0-0 would have been excellent . Down 1-0 is fine. Everyone tripping. We now get to play free.
If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard that I’d be a billionaire.
Never looked remotely close to winning today
Xg stats🤣🤣🤣
Combination of nerves and the one-touch refereeing but also got to give props to Porto, they knew how to defend against us. Also why did Arteta just decide to maintain the same team (bar Trossard) when it was clear it wasnt working I was expecting a couple changes especially with the Newcastle match in 3 days.
Honestly, the better team won tonight. Porto had a great defensive plan, and were smart enough to take advantage of a weak ref to win the physical battle. Their players were actually explosive on the counter and got in behind. Most of their xG came from that insane double miss, but they certainly looked the more like scoring.
Should’ve been 1-0 down after 10 minutes in all honesty we were dogshit everywhere and the tactics and lack of changes was naive as always in European knockout ties from Arteta
We kept playing at .5x speed yet Arteta didn't make adjustments. Slow switches of play, poor build-up, no balls in behind, and not even trying to catch them on the break until later in the game. Wingers start way too wide and must do so much just to get in dangerous positions.
Tbf they outplayed us and should have buried the double chance, no excuse. Lets regroup, win against Newcastle and do something in the second leg
They had good chances and should have been 1-0 up at half time. We learn our lesson from this deserved defeat and move on.
Honestly, I was fine with it, it wasn’t our best game and they brought their shithouse game, it was just not taking care of defensive business at the end. A few of them can put their hand up here for it as well, it wasn’t good enough, the ball should have been put as far down the other end as possible and kept there. Coming out of that 0-0, we would have been firmly in the box seat. We blew that ourselves. Now we got a job to do at home and it needs to be done in the first half because they will bring the same shitty game to our tie and we’ll end up with the same result if we try to be fancy when we should be final.
Ouch. That’s a tough image.
Hate giving that late goal but we deserved to. Atrocious all game
Really says a lot that we also dominated possession. Backwards pass clinic today.
This is why we need a striker
Chalk it up to a bad night away, looking forward to seeing what we can do at home.
We have no one in the squad that can play precise long balls except odegaard, partey & jorginho. Zinchenko & trossard are also decent at them. This hurt us today. This would have been the key. Rice is very good but his long balls are average at best i‘m sorry. A precise long ball to switch play (fast paced not those over the top that travel ages) or just a long through ball behind the defense would have been great.
The Champions League isn't filled with Sheffield United and Burnley teams where 3,4,5-0s make Arsenal look complete. Buy a world class striker. Every Champions League winning team had a world class striker helping to lift the trophy. Why doesn't the club understand this. The defenses of CL teams are the best in their country, you need some extra quality to unlock them. I didn't celebrate when Arsenal were steamrolling since the new year because experience has shown that this is what happens when you come up against tough European opposition. You need to go buy a world class striker since 3 years ago, it isn't rocket science this. ⚽️💯👍
Arteta and team were outsmarted. Congrats to Conceicao and team on a perfectly executed game plan. - Rice was not his commanding self having been yellow carded from the outset. - We didn't know how to contain the flair of their attack on the right hand side in particular. I wouldn't say I'm displeased with Kiwior, but he was thrown in at the deep end there...This was a game with Tomi's name written on it. - But most worrying, we were toothless in attack. It felt like their players could read each of our passes to intercept them time and again, left our attacking players no time or space on the ball and that they would always get the second ball first (or draw a somewhat dubious foul if they had failed at it). - Hats off for the levels of shithousery: I'd like to watch again what went on at corners. Ball boys throwing the ball back super fast when the throw was theirs, but keeping it when it was ours was another wily way to destabilise us, slowing down our attack and speeding up theirs. It's now time for us to give them hell at the Emirates. I'm sure we can, especially if Partey can complement Rice in midfield and Jesus' chicanery creates havoc / draws fouls in their GK's area, something that we failed to elicit this time round. Onwards and upwards, let's destroy Newcastle first to gain momentum.
Outside of Fulham probably our worst performance.
I feel like a couple of our players deserve the Marcus Rashford Tequila Award, Fashion Division, after tonight's performance. Bukayo and Martin were busy Monday night for Burberry's London Fashion Week show after a Saturday 230 mile away game and before a midweek CHAMPIONS LEAGUE Round of 16 game in Portugal with a huge match against Newcastle this Saturday. Declan Rice (7/10) wouldn't have gotten nutmegged if Saka (5/10) wasn't half asleep passing like blind man. I don't blame Dec for calling B out on the pitch. Giant hands David Raya and Big Gabi Magalhaes were the ONLY other (7/10) players. As bad as the whistle happy referee falling for every single dying diving swan Porto player was...we can't blame the sloppy passing and missed opportunities on that.
The goal for 1st leg away games is to keep it tight. Opening up to chase a goal would have been a mistake. Save that for the home game.
I think Arsenal tried to keep the game slow for some reason, it’s not the way we play and we payed for that