Match Preview: Arsenal v FC Porto (Champions League)
|Arsene Wenger said he felt “physically sick” after Sunday’s shock defeat by Hull City but the Arsenal manager will be hoping to get his European campaign back on track with a win against Portuguese Champions FC Porto this evening.
The Gunners’ only previous home defeat to a newly promoted side was against West Ham in February 2006: in their next European game they recorded a famous 1-0 win at Real Madird to set them on the road to the quarter-finals and eventually the final in Paris.
France midfielder Samir Nasri returns to the squad for tonights clash with Porto.
Nasri has been out with a knee injury since late August but is available to face the Portuguese side.
Alex Song (hip) joins Tomas Rosicky, Abou Diaby, Amaury Bischoff and Eduardo in the treatment room.
Arsene Wenger has said he will make changes following the shock defeat by Hull, with Mikael Silvestre among those hoping for starts.
Predicted Starting XI
Almunia
Sagna – Toure – Gallas – Silvestre
Eboue – Fabregas – Denilson – Nasri
Adebayor – Bendtner
Match Prediction: Arsenal 2-0 FC Porto
Catch all the post-match reaction and player ratings here on Gooner Talk seconds after the final whistle.
Leave your views and predictions of tonights game in the comments section below.
when wenger said he would be happy with a point i reckon that was very stupid..it put the players in a mindset that a point would be good enough and as a result they played poorly..still though…yet another crappy penalty decision
Don’t agree. I think AW said he would be happy with a point to emphasize the message to the players that Kyiv should not be taken lightly.
The players were not sharp today, that’s for sure. Song, despite his obvious rust, was an imposing player in midfield and was a true enforcer. His tough tackling was very much needed today.
Ade was a mixed bag of poor first touches, poor finishing, and hard work. He delights and frustrates in equal measure. I thought Walcott had good moments, including the assist, but he still made a lot of frustratingly bad decisions.
Kyiv should also be given credit for harrassing our players in midfield. Notice that our passing is not nearly as sharp as it can be when the opposition is energetic and closes down our players quickly (Fulham, Kyiv). When our players are given space (Newcastle, Twente, Blackburn), we dominate the game.
fuckin nobs. you call yourself arsenal fans!? after backburn you we’re all raving but after a draw away your back to “we’re shit, we need to sign someone.”
the first half we were by far the better team! cesc wasn’t at his best tonight, but he did miss pre season and is still playing catch up.
unfortunately thwey got a stupid penalty which forced wenger to take off song, which then left the midfield wide open and streched the game, making denilson and cesc look shit. but they werent.
Kiev away may well be the hardest game in the group and we came away with a draw and could’ve got more!
get behind your team
You’re a f*cking nob, you moron! Just because I have made a cold assessment which happens to include criticism doesn’t mean (1) I think we’re shit, (2) I think we need to sign someone, or (3) I don’t support the team. I am one of the few fans who always thought our squad was good enough to compete for domestic and European honors this season. Does that mean I think the team is perfect? No!!!
writing is a little dodgy, looks patched up
I think it’s pretty brilliant tbh. Constructive criticism is welcome of course though.
lmao 😉
yeah, sorry, writing quality so as good as could have, had about 20 people shouting at me about what to say.
* not as good as could have been
Great report, so glad we got the draw in the end..
A draws not bad but whats with denilson on the left??? When is ro-sicky comming back??
we are desperately short on wingers..rosicky is ALWAYS out and never seems to come bak, nasri seems a bit injury prone aswell although too early to tell yet, walcott is only real winger left…eboue is just shite as everyone knows and any other wingers are far too young
Adebayor man of the match?? Fuck off you cunt. He was shit. Crap passing in the final third, crap shooting as usual. 7.5?? Go fuck yourself you prat and your stupid website full of shit.
Song was very good for being so out of match practice at the top level. Poor rating in my opinion for rating him at a 5. He won the ball back many times which Denilson never would of done. Our defense looked horrible for the first five minutes that he was taken off for. That period showed how valuable he had been.
You are joking right? Fabregas a 4? Bendtner a 3? Adebayor MOTM? I’m sorry but completely wrong.
fucking woeful. play like that in turkey or portugal and we won’t make it through the group. we went there for a draw and were bloody lucky to escape with one.
Is it just me or does Fabregas look fat? Pass two games he has done nothing, very worrying!
what about fabregas s body language !,not good
it has to be said the front two were so poor, Chris i can’t believe u have made Adebayor man of the match i honestly think he was one of our worst players on the field plus he missed a great chance in the first half but that isn’t really surprising coming from Adebayor he has got to get dropped in my opinion but Walcot is impressing me more and more each time i see him on the field his all round game has improved he hardly lost the ball tonight which was good and i noticed a bit of fire in him tonight definitely one of our best players tonight he didn’t give up on the fight i really think he needs to get his chance as a strikers role
Good player rating.Fab was average today.
good result in the end tbh, Cesc wasn’t as good as he normally is but oh well every1 has an off day, Walcott was again gr8 on the right hnd side looked dangerous everytime he had the ball.
cesc is a little bit lost without alex and tomas.
Shouldn’t that be threw himself to ground and not through
Disagree about Song- thought he was good and when he went off we completely lost our shap and were over-ran in midfield. Cesc and Denilson were woeful. Adebayor & Van Persie poor- no interaction whatsoever. Overall if we had taken our chances in the first half it would have been a different story. second half we got out of jail.
very strange ratings……… denilson definately deserved more than a 5 and so did song …… adebayor did work hard but he missed a very easy chance in the 1st half which he should be scoring so a 7.5 is way too high. the only player that didnt play that well was fabregas but the rest were all ok
Although it was bad defending from Sagna, should have positioned in front of the atacker, it wasn’t a penalty!!
We needed to play 4-4-2 we played with a redundant midfield, van Persie on the left is not his best position, the 4-5-1 showed scaryness that wasn’t needed because we could have finished them of with a 4-4-2 with 3 or three fresh players in the team…
I’m glad we saved a point and I hope the players can recover for Bolton!
Song and Walcott was are best players Frabagas cant play with Denilson Wenger go and fucking get Appiah
I’m very worried about the way we get pass around in midfield there is know midfield dominance Blackburn done it to us on the weekend in the first half. it really worries me
It definitely wasn’t a penalty. Sagna touches him (like every defender does at least 5 times per game), but the Kyiv player doesn’t even try to go for the ball, instead he goes downwards immediately and actually lands on his back meaning that he did a 180 degree fall á la Ronaldo thus looking for the referee even before he hit the ground.
Should’ve been 2-0 up in half time. Wenger did the right choice with his 4-5-1 formation seeing as Kyiv didn’t create a single chance in the first half while we created 3-4 good goalscoring opportunities that normally would’ve materialized. A combination of bad finishing and the referee made us draw, in my opinion. 1-1 away to Kyiv is not a bad result at all though.
did any one else notice david villa playing tonight in cescs shirt!
I thought song played well in that game won the ball back alot which we need, thought it was a very tight game and no space in midfield. Denlison was ok but is to similar to Cesc who was ok not a 4 thou. At the end of the day we got a point and didnt play well 2nd half why all the neagitive points on here. Sure we didnt win but got a point and if we win all 3 home games we in the next round. Cheer ip.
clichy for me was awful. all their attack came through the right.It wasnt a case of dynamo being defensive or anything i thought arsenal were too complacent in the match.Denilson is not consistent enough.Him and cesc in the middle of the park just wont work.I know some have been saying that cesc hasnt been playing well.I disagree.Cesc is spending too much time defending cos he knws denilson isnt gonna exactly protect our back four.I will rather have alex song play as a dm which will enable cesc too go more forward.
Another thing that really pissed me off were wenger’s substitutions.His substitutions were good but just too late.Giving vela and eboue 10 minutes on the pitch really doesnt help.Should have made them a lot earlier
Arsenal was chaotic in the midfield, complete chaos (ok, you could expect some of that from a hard away CL game)
We need more intelligence in the midfield, Denilson out for Ramsey . Denilson especially has no discipline in defense nor in attack.
There is a difference between beeing disciplined but creative and chaotic.
We are barely recognizeable at the moment, it seems Fabregas lack of partners is taming his own ambitions and abilities.
I think we need more discipline and intelligence in there, Ramsey has got to be the answer
We certainly lacked some discipline and stength in the middle of the park. The singers, when given the chance from fluent play, did their jobs well, but no back up from the midfield to flood the box for a cross. I think we missed Nasri :s
The penalty decision was a disgrace but what can you do. We shouldnt have found ourselves going 1-0 down at that stage of the game. I think Cesc was playing too high up the pitch at times. We lacked his vision coming from the center circle. He’s not quite fit at the moment anyway. Of course Nasri was a big loss. Theo was tearing it up, always great to see. Denilson was his scatty Denilson self. I think although Song didn’t have a great game, he did ok breaking up play and playing the simple ball. The biggest problem for me is when ur looking to win a game, Eboue and Bendtner wouldn’t be what I’d bring off the bench.
2 points lost?
I guess we’ll really know the answer to that when the group stages finish. If we finish top, I for one won’t be too worried about a draw in Kyiv.
Look on the bright side.
If arsenal get all their krap refereeing decisions in the CL out of the way now, they wont occur when we are challenging for the title. Having said that I dont understand how refs can be pulled into one of those decision by the ref. Why would Sagna want to push him over in the box like that?
So we beat Blackburn (a good side) away from home 4-0 then get a draw which satisifed Wenger and still there are the doom sayers around. Who are you to tell Sagna how to defend. If he had of been in front and the ball had been put long, then what? Stop being so negative just because we didnt win the game. We can’t and will not win every game and given we still have Rosicky, Nasri, Diaby and Eduardo out, were still in very good shape
Nasri, come back, you need us!
well,i didn’t get to see the game but reading your report doesn’t feel good.
no hopes lost yet i hope!
People here have been to harsh. They didn’t watch the match they were probably watching the man u game as they thought we were villarreal. Fabregas tried to make things happen but there was no apparent link from midfield and attack as denilson was missing for too long though when he got the ball showed nice touches. It is not good always to have two players who like to have the ball all the time playing together i.e. Fab and Deni. Overall decent result but we were not outplayed.
Cant see AW starting Silvestre on such an important match – more likely he would come on as sub.
Have a feeling you are right about Eboue though – but would prefer to see theo
eboue deserves to start imo just not wide left,
yeah i think this will be the starting line up:
almunia
sagna toure gallas clichy
eboue fabregas denilson nasri
adebayor vela. i dony know why but i think vela will start, my OPinon.
arsene derserves a better effort from his team ,
Wenger made many changes (!)
http://arsenalcolumn.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/mach-preview-arsenal-v-fc-porto/
Only change from the Hull game is Eboue out and Nasri in.
Lucho on the bench!!!
Arsenal:Almunia,
Sagna – Toure – Gallas – Clichy
Walcott – Fabregas – Denilson – Nasri
Adebayor – Van Persie
Subs: Fabianski, Vela, Ramsey, Silvestre, Djourou, Bendtner, Eboue
FC Porto: Line Up (4-5-1)
Helton
Sapunaru, Bruno Alves, Rolando, Benitez
Fernando – Meireles – Guarin – Costa- Rodriguez
Lisandro Lopez
Subs: Pedro Emmanuel, Candeias, Lucho, Hulk, Lino, Nuno, Stepanov
nasri may play centre, RVP on left
very worried about that midfield line up is it strong enough ?
Nasri is key
Player Ratings?