Porto are way better than I expected. So much to play for at the Emirates. The doubts in Europe just don’t seem go away.
Just like the Leopard not losing it spots , the inexperience of the Arsenal team is quite evident. This was clearly obvious with the way the Gunners played away at Porto . That final 40 seconds before the goal summed up the inexperience perfectly.
Gabriel puts the pressure on us, we lose the ball a total of 4 times with Martinelli rushing that ball to Saka and we concede sigh! Shocking how they can barely stick one, two touches together, and were literally panicking . ffs! It's just Porto away, not Bernabeu, Camp Nou, Allianz Arena. This team has zero gut and bravery when it matters. No heart!
For how long do we keep banging the drum of inexperience? Even kids know they will gladly take a point home... Just dont conceed... few seconds to the ending of the game, where were they running to? I guess that is just our European heritage. I saw us go to the CL knockouts 15 years in a row and yet get knocked out by the likes of Monaco and PSV and now Porto ?
I wouldn't say Arsenal were in control at all in the match yesterday, ever. Very shaky from the get go and never looked like scoring. Porto said they would exploit our weaknesses and boy they did do that. Frustration caused that messy play towards the end of the match. I still find it strange why Arsenal find it so so hard against teams with low blocks, why? We need to get shots from the box and not always stick to getting crosses and walking through the middle. We need to step up the next game at home to avoid knockout which I don’t think won't happen with yesterday's night performance.
We come after scoring 5 and 6 goals and we didn't have a decent occasion in this game not even a shot on target ... Everyone making mistakes, it's practically unbelievable I must say.
Arsenal however have not always had it easy against Porto in Portugal in previous champions league encounters . Hopefully the return leg at the Emirates is a different story entirely. I see a lot of people saying I'm sure we would go through . Porto has the advantage and I'm not sure about this team . We need leaders and there are not so much of them within our team.
I really just hope this champions league loss does not birth a streak of poor form for the Gunners in their upcoming matches. They can't afford to lose focus at this point in time. Any form of slip up particularly in the Epl will be detrimental to their title hopes. Next stop is a home game against Newcastle, it will be interesting to see how the Gunners respond to their defeat against Porto in this match . Now is the time to rise to the occasion, not to crumble under pressure.