MATCH DAY BLOG: PORTO VS ARSENAL
Mikel Arteta delivered a pretty sober press conference before our first Champions League last 16 in 7 years. He paid respect to Porto as a team, as a historic club, and as a competitor. It was pretty clear that he is very much aware this young team could take the game lightly and find themselves in a tough return home leg.
The most important strategem for an away leg first game: Don’t lose.
Pep G always talks up the banana skin of a first-leg Champions League game in the last 16. It’s there to sucker the complacent. We simply cannot take them lightly. We don’t have the best record against Portuguese sides, and we have to be real: If we go out, it will be a disaster from a PR perspective. No one wants to be talking about less games if that happens because we’re out of the Champions League.
The preparation couldn’t be better. We’re the hottest team in Europe by some margin. We’re scoring goals, we’re defending like demons, and all the work from earlier in the season is finally bearing fruit on the pitch.
Our football is good enough to get us to the semi-finals this season. But hey, so were the Wenger teams of the early 2000s. But we never got to grips with the competition. I don’t want there to be a learning curve in the knock-out stages. I’d love to see us embrace our youthful fearlessness and just decide that we can own this from day one. That doesn’t mean we need to win, but if we can get to a semi-finals, you can basically do anything. Pep has the record for semis. I don’t want the record, but I want Arsenal to impose themselves on Europe and be feared.
The best way to get that fear factor is to dispatch teams like Porto with limited drama.
These games might be slower than Premier League equivalents. We have 180 minutes to win the game, so being 0-0 after 65 minutes is fine. Not exploding on Porto is also fine. Patience is a virtue and the best teams historically in this competition are good at that. Milan back in the day were outrageously patient, they almost enjoyed naive teams thinking they were on the backfoot. Barcelona at their best weren’t patient, but they were extremely tactical and thoughtful. It wasn’t all glitz and glam. Champions League is played at a high level, but so many games are absolute dog fights. Just look at that Mourinho Inter side that shit-housed Barcelona in the semis against all the odds. The performance was DISGUSTING. But a masterclass in underdog spirit.
The Champions League is where we want to be whoever the opponent… this is the big time… this is what we’ve been begging for for 20 years. A competitive team, to be taken seriously, with an actual chance.
People said we were spoilt under peak Wenger. We were, but we were middle-class spoilt. 2 pairs of Air Jordan’s spoilt. Maybe ‘I’m on dad’s BMW insurance’ spoiled. But we weren’t billionaire nepo baby spoiled. I want to be Audemars Piguet spoilt. I want ‘roll the Ferrari into the pool to impress my friends’ levels of spoilt. I don’t want to be accountable for my bad decisions… and that, for me, is having a team that can actually win the Champions League every year.
There wasn’t too much excitement in the team news. Fabio Vieira was the main point of conversation for the Portuguese media. This was a signing driven by Arteta and he’s arguably the only player in the squad with mega doubts over his future. His fan favorability rating is well below 50%, but people forget, he’s still a baby, and he has 2 goals and 4 assists in 507 minutes of football. There’s a player in there somewhere, so it’ll be interesting to see if Arteta can find it.
There was also a bit of drama with regards to Jurgen Klopp purring over Sambi Lokonga. The Belgian is living up to his rep as a top-up-and-coming talent. He’s now disciplined and brave, and he’s making a difference at a very underfunded team. Klopp commented that he was on loan and he found that ‘interesting.’ That sent fans into a spin – and had many questioning their opinions of him.
- Were we too harsh?
- Was Arteta wrong?
- Could he make it at Arsenal?
All of these questions are correct… and the sign of a great loan.
These are ‘keep’ indicators to fans. But they are also ‘sell’ signals if you are sitting in Edu’s seat.
So what should he do?
Sell when the rep is rehabbed. Folarin Balogun is a prime example, fans were falling over themselves to keep him, he’s gone to Monaco for a huge fee, and he’s been ok.
We need to sell at the top. Not when we’ve realised the player probably won’t break into the starting 11. Why? Because then Arteta freezes him out, pulls a face at him in a game he’s given him 3 minutes, then he tells the press the player isn’t living up to the foggin standards.
I expect him to leave in the summer for a good fee and I suspect the same will happen with Nuno who is showing his worth at Forest.
We all have to face up to the new Arsenal reality – we are going to sell players that are very good because we are very, very good.
Right, that’s me done.
Enjoy the game.
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