Arsenal 1-0 Porto (4-2 pens): Raya makes the saves as Gunners hold their nerve

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video

Arsenal are through the quarter-finals of the Champions League after a penalty shoot-out win over Porto last night.

Let me say, first and foremost, what a horrible team Porto are to play against. On the one hand, credit where it’s due: over the course of two legs they worked very hard to negate our strengths, and last night they made life very difficult for us. They made us play the game the way they wanted it to be played, and that’s not easy to do – especially with the form we’re in at the moment.

On the other though, I’m very glad to see the back of a team whose players fall over a lot, and whose dark-arts have been enabled by the officials in both legs. I get it, this is what European competition can bring, it’s all about winning at the end of the day, and this was the way Porto and their crotchety manager chose to go about it. However, it’s not much fun.

90 minutes in Portugal plus 120 minutes last night, I’ve had my fill of Porto. From the start they wasted time, as is their right, but you expect the officials to notice. 1 minute of added time at the end of the first half? What? As for last night’s referee, I’ll admit he made some odd decisions that both teams might have find fault with, but far more of them were made in Porto’s favour than ours. Honestly, I wondered if this guy had a different rule-book or something. It felt demented at times.

Then again, that might have been the occasion, the pressure, the nerves, the way this game – this entire tie – has been played on a knife-edge. Their late goal in the first game meant we had to score last night, and after 40 minutes of the first half I was already thinking about what we might do to change it at the break. Porto had frustrated us, both sides had some half-chances but not much more, and the game suited them down to the ground.

At this point, Martin Odegaard dug deep into his creative reserves to help us find a…

Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/03/arsenal-1-0-porto-4-2-pens-raya-makes-the-saves-as-gunners-hold-their-nerve/

Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-03-13 07:45:55

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