Arsenal are through the quarter-finals of the Champions League after a 4-2 penalty shoot-out win over Porto this evening.
Leandro Trossard scored the only goal of the 120 minutes, finishing a brilliant Martin Odegaard pass. The captain had one disallowed in the second half, and overall it was a frustrating night against classically difficult European opposition.
But in the shoot-out Odegaard, Saka, Rice, and Havertz scored for Arsenal, while David Raya saved too as the boys in red and white went through and the horrible bastids in blue go home.
Here’s how the players rated this evening.
The ratings are hidden by default until you vote, but if you just want to view the ratings and the comments, flick the switch at the top above David Raya. Also, please give the ratings a few seconds to load.
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Read the Arsenal 1-0 Porto (4-2 on pens) match report and see the goals here
Davis Raya! Get in!
We the Celebration Police got carried away and joined arsenal in the celebration.
David Raya finally announced himself to the Arsenal fans at the Emirates. He is going to become a popular figure now and that’s only going to increase his confidence.
4/10 Mikel Arteta for NOT trusting his bench enough in another tight game. It’s becoming a noticeable flaw.
I think you would have preferred an Arteta who does not trust his bench and win than the one who trusts and lose.
That’s a false binary so not a very sensible response. Maybe if he’d have put in Vieira or ESR, or Jesus earlier, we’d have won it without risking penalties, which are always a super risky proposition? Though maybe we would’ve lost it too, so it could be he made the best decision. But you can’t judge that just by the result, then you’re completely disregarding the randomness of football and treating it as some preordained destiny just because it already happened, which is a fool’s errand. That said I do trust Arteta to analyse this better than any of us… Read more »
I am with you. Have raised this issue several times that we cannot critisize Arteta in this space no matter what happens. But regarding this post, I just felt it was a very important night in the recent 4-5 years of our club, and we should understand how conservative Arteta can be. I mean, this was a place for no more than zero risk.
Even zinny came on and gave a few bit of scares…
You can’t be too sure with arsenal bench.
None of them really biting hard..
There are ways you perform in training that the manager will struggle to ignore you.
I guess the current lineup of benchers have resigned to squad roles, barring Partey, Jesus and Tomi_Zinny.
The issue of our lack of depth from the bench wasn’t addressed last season and still hasn’t been addressed this season. The players we want might not be available or their clubs might be asking silly prices but this is the reason we are going to be ‘close but no cigar’ two years in a row.
Oh just fuck off
Lol. No need to be mad about it, I am a big appreciator of what Mikel has done and he would ALWAYS have my support. This was a rating post and I rated him based on the game today, wbat’s there to be mad about?
I have noticed that on this site people are not allowed to point out negatives when we win. Bit weird
We won the match with four starters banging home their penalties. Banging them home. Banging. Arteta knows how to manage. He went up against a trash talking Mourinho-lite who couldn’t stop yammering even after the final whistle, and graciously showed him the door after hosting him for a long night at the Emirates. In the Champions League. The guy prepared this very young team to beat master cynicicians (that is not a word) and progress and earn the club a payday. Pointing out what you perceive to be a “flaw” and assessing him a 4/10 is not a negative, it’s… Read more »
Even bringing Zinchenko on was an obvious but brave move.
I agree with you that 4/10 is very harsh, I’d probably go for 7.5/10 or thereabouts personally, but even then that means you can do a tiny bit better and try to be 9/10 next time. There is also stuff to be learned from wins and it’s not just what you did right, you always want to leave less to chance next time, if you’re just waiting for losses to learn lessons you’ll likely never win anything. The fact 4 players banged in their penalties does reflect somewhat on the job Arteta did in preparing the team for this tie,… Read more »
I think it’s more that the name of the game was progression tonight. I would honestly fancy us more against the likes of Bayern or Barca, as at least they’d actually come at us, and wouldn’t be quite as pathetic when it comes to all the rolling around.
I’m interested to know how much time in play we actually had today. It felt like about 40 minutes in the stadium, then we got a paltry three minutes of added time.
We went through so it’s an automatic 10 for Arteta for me- navigated a very tricky oponent.
I agree with you about having more of a chance against the likes of Barca and Bayern because they actually want to play football.
You didn’t point out a negative, though even if you did I think you would be wrong to do so. If you can’t enjoy a big win in the champions league without focusing on negatives, then what’s the point? But what you were really doing was sitting on your arse in the couch after a big win and declaring unequivocally and arrogantly that Arteta has a flaw with regard to use of his bench. You didn’t just question it, or raise a point for discussion, you declared it like a know it all who really knows Jack Sh$t. THAT’S what… Read more »
It’s amazing how you have all took it personal. It has been mentioned here over and over again that Arteta does NOT trust his bench well enough. It’s an obvious flaw, and I am not the first person to point to it. FFS, this was a post about rating the team. Maybe you should see the comments I made about the team on the other match-related posts. We rate the team all the time in these posts, who are you guys to tell me that my opinion does not count (because we won). It’s interesting because I know many people… Read more »
It’s weird because we’ve come such a long way in understanding football in the last decade but the discussion in here is so often insanely coloured by the result. I get being happy that we won and being sad when we lose, but the analysis of the game can and should often be separate from that, especially if we win or lose in penalties or by a one goal margin, then there are often positives to take from losses and negatives to learn from in the wins. But you couldn’t dare to suggest that here sometimes… It’s funny, if that… Read more »
The fact that Arsenal allowed the tie to go to extra time and penalties probably sums up the paucity of the performance by itself.
Careful, that’s too much nuance there apparently
There is so much criticism and negative press and biased punditry and unfair officiating when it comes to Arsenal FC from everyone else that I think it irks the majority of supporters on here when our own fans search out and needle in the negatives even when we win an enormous match in thunder-dome fashion. And, of course, there are the usual suspects on here who say the same negative thing, over and over, about the manager, which is awfully tiresome when we win. No one has blocked you here, no one has moderated your comment out of existence, but… Read more »
He gave Reiss a run out against Brentford. Why? Because he knew we needed to stretch them and Reiss did exactly that for the manager. The manager knows how to rotate, you just don’t agree with him because somehow you have decided you are smarter than the manager. That’s a bit weird.
What’s weird is people always having to find fault with the manager when we win. Criticizing the lack of subs in such an intense game? He correctly understood it’s a certain game environment that is very difficult to leave the bench and immediately be up to that level. One mistake the last game saw us go behind. Did Eddie or Zinny really have an impact?
Amen
He used Eddie, Jesus and Zinchenko today while Partey, Tomiyasu and Timber are basically still injured or coming back from injury…
Plus he played Ramsdale 2 days ago (and in the cups erlier in the season) and also played Kiwior today (who is a sub – if everybody else is fine)
Oh and yes…
Based on the minutes played – Trossard is a sub too (if Martinelli is fine)
Who would you have subbed that was not one of the penalty takers? I thought Havertz looked gassed and could have come off, but he showed real class on the pk so. Saka, don’t think so. Rice? We already took Jorginho off. Odeggard? Only man still running, and needed to be on for penalties. Ben White? For who and at what risk for losing our defensive shape and hit on the counter.
Dude what are you saying? He did get us through to the next round, what else do you want?
I understand your position. But just making changes with possible penalties in mind and the type of game it was would have been foolish.
Glad to see that there are people here who want to civilly give their opinions about this and I respect it ALL.
Don’t have time for the horde up there who are taking it personally and resorting to insults like unhinged hoodlums.
Think most (not all) are just confused. Who would you have subbed on, that wasn’t already subbed on, & for who?
Generally, I think rotation’s been alright recently actually. We’ve been on an insane run since the begining of the year, so it’s no huge surprise that the starting 11’s been relatively unchanged. We have been able to use our subs earlier in the matches we’ve blown teams away though (which have been a fair few recently), so not quite sure where the criticism is coming from.
Maybe, but Kai, Raya, and Rice played HUGE roles in this win. Give Mikel credit where it’s due.
Dear Celebration Police officer, you have officially been sacked from your duties as a Celebration Police officer for failing to criticise Arsenal for celebrating in their UEFA round of 16 victory over FC Porto. Arsenal have not yet won the Champions league and so by clause 5 of the official celebration code of conduct are not able to celebrate and must depart through the tunnel immediately without showing emotions. You failed to enforce this law and so your contract has been immediately terminated
OSCP quite possibly the only effective oversight body in the entire global game. PGMOL, FIFA: are you watching?
Thank you! Unfortunately you can only be effective in small areas, and our organization is only currently working on critising Arsenal for their celebrations. Unfortunately, we lack the capacity to criticise the other clubs but, rest assured, we will continue to police the Arsenal celebrations until when they win the Champions league
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾😀
If you can’t beat them, you join them.
It’s been a great journey. A time comes when something has to come to an end. We have decided to join the arsenal fans. It seems celebrations have no end at the Emirates.
It is sad to lose you but thankfully we still have our best Celebration Police officers working for us, like Jamie Carragher. Him alone will ensure that Arsenal will be criticised for celebrating so we no longer need your services
😀😀😀
10/10 for Havertz shoving the Porto manager.
That shove alone was worth 65 million quid.
Sixty million down the drain, Kai Havertz shoves again!
(Btw, who expected Kai Havertz to be the kind of player who “puts himself about” in the most annoying fucking way for the opposition??? Awesome to see, and I’m starting to love this player.)
There was a Chelsea fan project last year that showed doing exactly that. His manners have improved at Arsenal. The Chelsea highlights looked like assault with malice.
showed him doing exactly that. Where did the edit button go?
Kai really is Granit Xhaka’s true replacement:
Divides opinion
Initially much more loved by manager than fans
Debate over best position
Puts himself about
Redeems himself
Earns the fans respect
I could go on, but am afraid that might curse him
Kai is the kind of player we hope Xhaka emulate.
Didn’t get to watch it due do baby duty over here. Around what time in the game did it happen? Thanks 😊
The middle
Havertz shithousery was brilliant in the face of theirs. Nonchalant pen and headers won. Cult hero one day?
Cobra Kai strikes!
So happy to be through but we will need to be much better to go further. I think the idea of them refusing to play is a bit simplistic, and I am sure (I hope) it will be analysed. They were very clever with their high-press, understanding extremely well when to go fast (which they did) and in general much more aggressive than us all night, and could have won the tie perfectly. I guess CL is different. Very proud of the boys though: they didnt allow their heads to be turned on by the occasion or the opposition and… Read more »
They worked very very hard as well I thought
Yes, I don’t get all the hate for Porto. They were great over the two legs. Made this tie basically a 50/50. Very brave with the high press, and quick to return to a compact low block once bypassed. A proper European tie.
Porto were very tactically astute and control the game despite losing. The hate comes from the endless play acting and falling over in the first leg, followed by repeated nasty unpunished fouls and time wasting in the second.
Porto looked the more likely winners in the first half of normal time (where they created several chances) and looked stronger than Arsenal in extra time (but created little)
Yeah, I find some of the chat around Porto a bit disrespectful. They did a lot more than “refuse to play”. Thought they were one of the best teams we’ve faced so far this season.
0/10
Out of ten potentially likeable things about Porto I’ve managed to come up with exactly zero.
Well, I just ordered some great Porto wine (Tawny, 2003 selection) and i’m going to enjoy it!!!
They couldn’t even find it in their pockets to hire a certain Ivorian winger and thereby field a third Pepe.
You can never have enough Pepe
You definitely can have enough Pepe.
I’m looking forward to never watching Porto again in my life
The commentator was saying that Porto usually play more expansive football in Portugal. They went anti-football specifically to neutralize Arsenal. Maybe Porto-Sporting is a good watch.
Maybe they did in the past. Elliott was saying, on the Arsenal Vision Livestream, that they have among the lowest “ball in play” number in Portugal.
I would definitely watch them again it was a really good tie. Don’t get me wrong I’m glad most teams are not like them but they are not thugs like Bolton and Stoke used to be rather they are masters at what they do and were an education for many of our players to play against
No.
Completely agree, they played their part in a really good tie. Used the ball really well when they had it & made it incredibly difficult for us when they didn’t. Thought their entire back 4 was great over both legs (especially their fullbacks last night & obvs Pepe). They’ve got a couple of exciting players in (young) Pepe, Wendell & Galeno as well.
Glad we beat em but would watch again
VAMOS !!
Fuck off Porto. Fuck off ref. Thank you David
Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah
Pepe give it up
Give it up
Pepe give it up!
We came out to play and win. Porto and their miserable manager came out to look like a bunch of asses, again. So really both teams succeeded.
Havertz and Odegaard were up to the task today: I’ll include Raya in that. The rest were very nervy. Love that team . Won’t be able to sleep. F*cking love life and football. Barcelona next please
Havertz, Odegaard, Raya and Kiwior for me
I think I’ll add Trossard for the goal as well.
Coyg!!!!! And totally agree about referee. He can go away with porto fans and i hope never see him again! And what a brilliant crowd! One day i hope to be one of them!
The first Raya of the New Rising Sun ☀
Porto are a horrible team, horrible manager and horrible “tactics” (constantly falling over)!!! They will not be missed in the next round for sure!!!
Don’t forget all the kicking, hip checking and elbowing. So much kicking. Saka had a guy riding him in the corner. Ref was from the WWE. Blogs said at one point-“the ref is insane”. Yeah criminally insane.
Forgot the kicking the ball away, throwing the ball away and waving imaginary cards at the ref, who did NOTHING.
Was the refs name really Turpin? He was a complete dick for sure.
Well done everyone for dumping the Stoke City of the Champions League out of the competition. The world is a much better place.
Stoke managed by Simeone’s neglected brother who lies for attention
Does Simeone act like that though? Sure, he plays a grinding defensive football and goes ape on the sidelines but I’ve not heard him be a sore loser or make classless post match comments about his opponents.
He is prone to gesticulating using his reproductive organs though….
Top man!
Ice cold. The lads have grown up and experiences like this can only benefit us for the rest of the season. So good to have confidence that each of our pen takers was going to score too.
The motm is definitely between Raya and Odegaard (Raya edges it), but I do understand why the rest of the team had a subpar game. The Brentford match must have taken a lot out of them and the exact same 11 had to rock up 3 days latter after a very demanding game at the weekend. I think the fringe players really have to up their game up and particularly their fitness levels.
Partey Jesus zinchenko and tomi need to have a positive impact before the end of the season. Partey in particular if he can find some form and fitness. Jorginho has been brilliant with Rice. Partey on song does everything better than jorginho
It’s the Champions League pal – every game os tough at this point, end of!
Probably some of the best penalties taken from the arsenal side. All cool as ice
Kudos to our Captain for taking the responsibility to take the first kick. Porto captain was hiding in a corner biting his nails.
10/10 for the Bonus rating, atrocious refereeing.
10 all round for the boys for standing their ground and fighting. I doubt there are any more c*nts at Porto’s level left. COYG!
Atletico?
Inter’s gonna dump them out so bad. Their wanker manager can fuck off as well
Gotta say possibly the most unpleasant team I have ever seen. Their constant diving, play-acting and falling over is not clever football, it is cheating pure and simple and the ref in both legs was so biased towards them that it was beyond laughable. Most teams would have struggled with Porto’s brand of anti-football over the two legs. Justice was done however as we have become rather brilliant at taking penalties and saving other teams lately. And at least the remaining teams in the draw are renowned for playing football and not trying to stop it by falling over every… Read more »
Falling over every 30 seconds? Don’t you mean every 5 seconds? Be interested to see how long the ball was in play for, wasn’t it 47 minutes at Porto’s ground?
Fuck Ally McCoist saying he is happy the ref isn’t giving any fouls and ‘letting the game flow’. They had permission to kick the shit out of us and know that nothing would be given. Joke of a ref.
I know! He kept going on about how brilliant the ref was for letting play flow. He didn’t mention how he was only letting it flow one way. Tosser.
He got to invested watching Porto play like 90s Wimbledon/any mourinho team
I’ve always thought McCoist seems a nice enough chap, but my does he chat some absolute bollox. Same with the commentator, when he said Saka doesn’t miss before he took his pen, I thought out loud ‘why would you say that you cunt’. Thankfully worked out well, but still.
Have to have the sound off whenever McCoist is commentator, not just bollocks but endless bollocks.
Hehe that was me exactly
You would think the ref was a rock star the way they kept going on about how amazing the ref was. I had to ask did we tune in to behold a referee’s performance. Shameless.
He also said the ref was class
Mccoist seems genial enough but hes starting to annoy me as a commentator. Has a habit of following up every opinion with ‘I really do’ and last night he kept saying ‘with all due respect’ even when it didnt really make any sense.
For me this makes par in the CL. From now on we can play freely with an Everything to win attitude. Something I think will free up the team mentally
Porto aka Stoke!! Actually, that might just be an insult to Stoke!!!
Lot’s of football snobs round these parts y’all
Hectic stuff
What a night
Rio , Gary and Jamie won’t sleep well tonight.
What a night!!
PS: we need to fix our extreme right-handness.
There’s a big attacking hole on our left that was basically unexploited all day.
Our goal came through one occasional foray to that left.
There is a guy who was perfectly dovetailing on that left hand side before but he seems to be making an indent with his arse on the bench every week. I love Trossard but he plays far more centrally when on the left and we lose our width. While the drum has been banged to death I really would love to see more of Emile Smith Rowe. Especially while Martinelli is out. Still, we got the job done tonight against just about the most vile opponent we’ve faced, right up there with Stoke and Atletico Madrid and we have a… Read more »
When Martinelli is fit it fixes itself.
True, but we really shouldnt have a single point of failure like that i dont think we get the best from Trossard at LW, would prefer Nelson.
Zinchenko at LW with Kiwior behind him at LB?
Not pretty scrappy win, but -10/10 for that ref… and the added time wtf
Blogs, your bonus points are always world class. What a time to be a gooner.
If every team was like Porto football would die out as a spectator sport. What a bunch of cunts, manager included. Well done red men of steel. Into the last 8, first time in 14 years.
Yet if it wasn’t for Raya’s saves, they’d be in the quarter finals…
Thought Odegaard deserved a 10 tonight, absolutely amazing display.
By far our best player during the first 120 minutes
1/10 McCoist “objective” reporting skills
Bonus rating correct:
That team and their personal referee were the most obnoxious anti football outfit I’ve ever seen.
God I just wish Kai had kicked the manager dickhead instead of pushing him
You’ve never heard of Atletico Madrid have you (or Inter under Mourinho)
Not for nothing but the ref looks a lot like Trossard.
the ref looks a lot like a Tosser…fixed that for ya.
…so Trossard looks like a tosser?
ill get downvoted for this but i dont think the ref was on their side.
he was just shit. how havertz and jorgi didnt get booked sooner i dont know. saliba getting one early was mad and thats without all the fouls porto did.
apparently reffed the wc/cl final? what a joke.
Totally agree, there’s a lot of whining on here after every game about the referee, think it’s a bit of a holdover from the latter Wenger years. We’ve got our share of shithouses, and we’ve had our share of decisions go our way as well.
I liked his leniency on the physical challenges, there were no real dangerous ones and the game never really threatened to get out of hand. Ultimately this played into our hands as Porto would’ve been flopping around and wasting time over fks a lot more if they knew it was a whistle/card happy ref But he was also far too lenient on the professional, counter attack disrupting fouls, which ruined any chance of the game flowing. If the same player can make several professional fouls before being booked it makes it way too easy to nip potentially dangerous attacks in… Read more »
Thought overall we were quite poor, compared to our League standard. Captain Odegaard was one of a handful who didnt look very nervy to me. Our defense defended well enough, but Saliba, White, Trossard couldn’t quit giving the ball away. I was just saying how ineffective Trossard was when he went and scored from a dead sexy piece of work by the Norwegian. Hope we learned something from that. Prior to the match I fancied Barcelona. A bit of revenge from our prior encounters, but at this showing they might be too much for us. We seemed overawed and we… Read more »
A lot of our subpar performance can be explained by the Brentford game. It was obvious they were playing with heavy legs and a bit of nerves too.
I thought both Blogs and fans gave really generous ratings. Porto made it really difficult and we threatened nothing most of the game. It’s about results in the CL and League performances have me more than confident going forward but today was so, so poor and dull. Same for the ref – you could see him starting to think himself the star of the show with delayed indication of who the foul was for/against.
This could be character building. Plus Barcelona will not play that way. It should be a very different game. Porto had to adapt their game because they knew they couldn’t outplay us.
It’s not that we were subpar, it’show Porto made us play, you have to give them some credit, tactically and technically, they were very, very, astute and streetwise, their play was designed to suffocate and snuff out our strengths and it worked to a good point in both legs.
Agreed. Porto are like Atleti Madrid lite i.e. no better than pedigree spoilers at CL level. I’m sure Arsenal will play better deeper into the competition but based on the two Porto performances, PSV are the only side remaining I would be confident of beating
Phew! If we’ve gotten that trash out of the way i believe we can win the CL. Never watched them play and seeing their game am happy i never cared to.
And their manager looks like he’s taken a really bitter concoction that has permanently stuck in the throat. Never seen an angrier looking manager in my life.
Hopefully the teams that have qualified to the next stage will try to play actual football.
That was a mini final for all the dirty tricks employed.
Well done boys.
Ben white please stop taking long for the throw…..I remember one time you got yellow card for that.
I think, honestly, our best defender was Kiwior today
I agree! his defending is just top class. there was this one moment when Porto were attacking and Kiwior makes sure to get goal side of running attacker, slightly pushes the runner to offside position while checking his own run again Gabi’s position, and when the ball does eventually falls to the attacker, he out muscles the guy… then offside got called I think. He is a natural defender, and he fast!
Watch the recovery run he does to help saliba and Gabriel on that Porto break. And he made the last ditch block.
I’m so relieved that we beat a truly inferior team using questionable behaviors. In conjunction with their well thought out tactics cancelled our offense). Having said that it’s worrying that Arteta was out coached in back to back Porto games. We never figured out how to beat the mid block. I appreciate that those wankers dove like dolphins and were allowed by a “weak and naive” ref to do pretty much what they wanted. So too had Newcastle our first match this season, but we figured out how to beat them. Arteta needs to improve as we move forward in… Read more »
I don’t hate this Porto team. They did what they had to do, and came up short.
I expect Pep to copy Pepe’s game plan.
Porto would have been through to the quarters had it not been for Raya’s saves (both in normal time and the shootout) Arsenal need to play a lot better if they want to advance any further in this competition as Porto are a bang average European side in the context of the CL
They do quite a bit of it already just with more subtlety. Rodri, in particular, is the master of the unbooked professional foul. I have no idea how he gets away with it. Bernardo Silva, Ake, and Dias all get away with unbooked professional fouls. You have to if you counter press or you face several jail break a game.
Nice to have another tight win under our belt especially in such a tense atmosphere. These type of matches will help us prepare for City and the matches ahead that we have in the run in more than the 6-0 victories will (although those are great and of course improve our goal differential). Really had some chances we should have buried to win the game earlier, but so calm and confident in the shootout.
I fucking love this team, and this support…and it is all down to Arteta…I fuckin love him too ya know
Delighted to see the back of Porto. Top to bottom, an odious team that deserve absolutely nothing at all. And the refereeing was utterly abysmal. It was as if he was officiating a completely different game. Credit to the Arsenal players for maintaining their cool under this kind of pressure. Hopefully we can go from strength to strength now. It says something when a team as young as ours can come through something like that. Porto are a like an entire football club of Jose Mourinhoes, and the referee played like a man who idolizes Graham Poll. And we won,… Read more »
Havertz pushing off Porto coach. That’s the fire we need.
Kai had a great game, worked his ring off. Knackered by the end, but cool as you like penalty. Fantastic win!
He worked hard and contributed in no small measure to the result but I wouldn’t say anyone (apart from Raya and Odegaard) had a ‘great’ game
99/10 Ramsdale celebrating with Raya. Generosity, dignity and courage. What a man.
Get every single one of those magnificent bastards on a plane to Dubai immediately.
I really want to understand if the referring is so different in Champions league? Coz the referee had so much conviction in his decisions, most of which I think was bad, but what do I know
Yes, it seems farcical that we only have just the one set of rules but two sets of officiating ‘strictness’
„The ref can f**k off”? I actually thought he managed the game exceptionally well. If it was someone like Lahoz, yellow cards would be flying, and we’d end up with half of our players injured. I think he deserves huge credit for keeping the game under control and making sure that football, rather than theatrics, decided its outcome.
I agree he could have been harsher on Porto players, but so on ours. Havertz could have seen yellow much earlier, and Jorginho and Odegaard both had tactical fouls worthy of a yellow. (Just for context, I think that the ref in the first leg was attrocious).
I thought the ref was fine. Porto are a very streetwise team (like Atleti in Spain) so Arsenal need to learn to overcome the ‘dark arts’
I was baffled as to why we constantly looked to go right to Saka when their left back had him in his pocket. Why not swap our wingers over or feed Trossard more. He hardly had a touch all night.
Delighted to get through but I still think Porto are a bang average team compared to what might lie in wait deeper into this competition. Arsenal need to play a lot better to advance any further.
10/10 for the whole team and manager in finding a way to deal with a crafty cynical bunch of wankers! It shows how far we’ve come we didn’t get frustrated and did enough to advance. And now time off to bask and get ready for Man City. COYG!!!
Let me put this simply. Porto’s tactics over two legs made us look toothless. Is no one else concerned that we did not find solutions? We won a crap shoot. It did not have to go that way.