WThings started out less than ideal for Declan Rice. His wing was snapped 67 seconds into Arsenal’s Champions League last-16 first-leg match against Porto at the Estadio do Drago. “This was really shocking because you can change your mindset a little bit,” the midfielder said of his lunge on Porto winger Galeno.
It was what happened at the very end that stuck with Mikel Arteta and his players as they awoke to cloudy skies in their hotel on the banks of the Douro on Thursday. The twist in the second half was a real shock. If Galeno was the star, scoring the only goal in the final minute of stoppage time, Rice was also part of it and Arsenal’s problem. The way of thinking.
After the match, Arteta was furious as his players lost the ball three times in the build-up to Galeno’s shot, failed to control the moment well, and felt the momentum suddenly changed. Porto are a street-oriented side, led by a very street-oriented coach in Sergio Conseño, and will head to the Emirates Stadium for the second leg on March 12th with confidence.
The first error was a shanked clearance by Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya, and then, after recovering the ball, Rice tried to make a move on Eduardo Pépin, but he turned to substitute Steven Eustequio and he I stole it. After Galeno hit back against Arsenal under pressure from Rice, Gabriel Martinelli came up with the idea of releasing Bukayo Saka on the break in the Hollywood diagonal, but this resulted in Otavio getting through his line and passing to Galeno. issued. . As Rice retreated, Galeno cut inside and did the rest, but the final question was whether Raya should have done better in his attempt to make the save.
If you look into the details with a clear head, things will get even worse. Arteta has a point when he says it would be cruel to brand a team naive based on a single incident. But as he well knows, this is the cruellest of business, and the overall impression, which Rice did not deny, was that Arsenal proved to be lacking in the intangibles. That was it – and that goes without saying, the dark side of Arsenal, the game.
“The last minute is probably a little bit inexperienced,” Rice said. “Maybe we need to be a little more sensible. 93 minutes, I look at the clock and it’s 0-0. We give the ball away in the final minute. We create the box twice and then bend one in the top bin. Especially in knockout games, you should never lose even if you can’t win, so you need some wisdom to judge the match.
“When I look at a lot of players on the pitch, I especially notice Pepe.” [the 40-year-old former Real Madrid centre-half], he has the experience gained in this kind of relationship. Look at our team, we are a very young group.Some of us have never played in the Champions League before [this season].
It was a game with a high number of fouls, 36 to be exact, the most in a Champions League game this season. Arsenal were given penalties in 22 of those games, but it’s fair to say that not all of them were awarded in the Premier League. The ball was in play 51.7% of the time, the lowest percentage in a last-16 first leg and ninth on the list of all ties in this season’s competition. Arsenal needed to manage their frustration.
“I think when you play European teams, they’re obviously going to play very differently than English teams,” Rice said. “Refereeing is really different. With Europe, you can’t get away with a lot of things.”
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Rice talked about the speed of the pitch, how he and his teammates had to adjust, and even had a moment to point out that Champions League ball is “completely different.” Rice has repeatedly said that Arsenal must learn to be “on the job”, or quick to reason.
“You know, this season, we lost a game, we tied a game, and I looked in the locker room afterward and it was really bad,” Rice said. “We just lost here, but there’s a really positive vibe around the group at the moment. We’ve got a really good start heading into 2024.
“We’ll be playing against a team that’s watching us and thinking about what they can do to stop us. I don’t think we had any shots on target against Porto, so it’s difficult to take shots. But… We’re still really positive.
“I’ve seen how many leaders there are within their teams that really push the team and want the best for each other. It’s so good to have a group that speaks honestly. They want to win things. , you need that if you want to go far with things. We’ve talked about some things, positive things, and now it’s about Newcastle on Saturday. We need to park this and revisit it. ”
