FC Porto 2-0 Arsenal: No Real Surprises

I have to say that the loss tonight didn't really come as a surprise to me. With the squad in the shape it was (a bad one) and the match meaning very little I had a distinct impression before the match (and one I shared with you) that we were going to struggle. And struggle we did.

It was a 2-0 defeat but it could have been a lot worse. We were second-best the whole night and Porto really played us off the park. They wanted this win more and they got what they deserved. The only thing that kept it from being 5 or 6-0 was our defense, which straggly was not that bad tonight.

Yes, we did concede from another corner, but the player who was to blame was Diaby who, with all his height, was caught ball watching and completely ineffective, allowing the Porto player to jump right over him. And a midfield giveaway resulted in the second goal, so in neither goal was the defense to blame.

In fact, I thought they were quite excellent tonight. It seems like we have found our central defensive partnership in Gallas and Djourou as the Swiss dealt wonderfully with the balls over the top and Gallas was experienced and tracked back well. Also, Eboue looked excellent in his natural position of right back and really proved to me at least that RB is the only position he should ever be played in: he is class there and despicable elsewhere.

But besides the defense it was a dismal night. The midfield was quite obviously patched together and it showed: we were weak in the middle and our flanks offered us nothing. Up top Vela was actually quite solid, but Bendtner once again failed to impress. If this lad wants to be first choice he's going to have to start playing better. It isn't so much the lack of goals from him that I'm seeing wrong, it's his bad positioning, his tendency to unnecessarily drift out right, and his overall lack of sharpness in and around goal. He'll have to improve.

But something that the media will be going crazy over for the next few days will be the fact that we finished second in the group. Never mind Chelsea did the same thing, we are the ones who were 'dismal' and 'disappointing'. The fact that we didn't win the group will be seen as a major failure in the side. But this is ridiculous. Even if we had finished top we wouldn't have had an easier route to the quarterfinals. Just look at who we could have:

If we were first: Inter, Sporting, Athletico Madrid, Villareal, Lyon, or Real Madrid.
As we are second: Roma, Panathinaikos, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, or Juventus

Looking at the choices, I'd rather we had finished second; oh wait, we did! Not so bad after all then that we finished second, is it? Not at all, and there is absolutely no reason for any of we gooners to fret over this result. Let's put it behind us and move on to more immediate matters such as the trip to the Riverside this Saturday.

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