Arsenal were left disappointed by conceding a very late goal in the UCL game at Porto, after keeping the Portugese giants at bay for the full 90 minutes. But with the return leg at the Emirates still to come we remain very strong favourites to progress to the quarter finals.
Declan Rice was left dismayed by the final result, but feels that with our very vocal home fans behind us, we can turn the tie around back on home turf. “We’ll need absolutely everyone,” he said on Arsenal.com. “The Emirates is going to be rocking. We feel that when it’s like that at our stadium it’s obviously one of the best places in the world to play football so we’ll be ready for it, I’m already looking forward to it and fans get right behind us. We’ll need everyone.”
Rice did admit to being surprised at the result, but fells we can only learn from the experience: “So frustrating,” he said. “We worked really hard, prepared really well. Obviously it wasn’t meant to be in terms of the way we created the chances tonight. After the start of 2024 we had, there’s a lot to learn, a lot to take from tonight.
“I think that’s a real positive, obviously to concede late is a real kick in the teeth but the positive is it’s half-time in two legs. We’ve got the home leg now, which we’re going to be fully up for with our fans, and have that goal to reach the quarter-final.”
My pre-game forn guide told us that it would be a tough game in Portugal, but with Porto not being good travellers in Europe we should hold a much stronger advantage.
We also have our home record from this season’s UCL Group matches, which saw us win all three fixtures, scoring 12 goals and conceded zero, so if we can continue in that vein in front of our fans we can recover from our depressing result in Portugal….
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Watching the game on television the atmosphere in Portugal seemed absolutely deafening. Moreso even than the fabled A field. That’s not to make excuses for the performance. We need to try to do the same at the Emirates.
Porto will be full defensive mode with occasional counter. And out team are not good at creating chances in such stances, so cant be confident we can go through next round because of our obvious flaws and history of bottling down in cup competition even against far inferior team and already been proved in FA cup and last yr europa cup. But let’s just hope this time it could be different.