Arsenal face fears of continuing Champions League hoodoo

PORTO, Portugal — Mikel Arteta believes his Arsenal side are detached from the club's storied catalog of UEFA Champions League last-16 runs, but another beckons if they can't rise to the occasion better than that .

The Gunners will be looking to overturn their 1-0 deficit in Wednesday's first leg defeat to Porto, but to do so they need to rediscover the composure and determination that made them strong favorites before the match sending.

Before Galeno's sublime 94th-minute winner, Arsenal were uncharacteristically inhibited, deprived of the dynamic football that defines them: they failed to register a shot on target in a match for the first time since January 2022, against Nottingham Forest in an FA. Defeat in the third round of the Cup which left Arteta incandescent with rage. He was more considered here, knowing they had a chance to salvage the situation in three weeks.

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“To their credit, they defended well,” Arteta said. “But it's true, when we arrived in certain areas we didn't finish the action or put in the last ball or the right cross. Now it's clear, it's half-time. If you want to be in the quarter-finals, you have to beat your opponent and that will be the goal and the plan, with all our supporters together.”

A noisy Emirates Stadium in the second leg will be a powerful advantage in their favor – just as the Estádio do Dragão was for Porto tonight – but they still haven't won a knockout match in this competition since 2015 .

Many of these defeats were characterized by a lack of guile and playing intelligence which reappeared here. Only the players can truly say whether Arsenal's record of seven consecutive Champions League round of 16 defeats has weighed on their minds. Mohamed Elneny is the only member of this team since their last appearance at this stage, a 10-2 aggregate defeat to Bayern Munich in 2017 – but they were shadows of their former selves.

Perhaps inexperience was told. Arsenal's 11 starters have a total of 16 appearances in the round of 16, all made by Kai Havertz. Porto defender Pepê had 47 alone. The home team was able to interrupt the match. There were 36 fouls committed here, a record this season in the Champions League with Arsenal punished 22 times. It was not a point lost for Arteta.

“It’s something we knew and had to prepare for,” he said. “It's something the referee has to deal with. There's nothing we can do about it and we'll have to deal with it and play our game.”[But] Even on set pieces, every time we touched someone it seemed like a foul before we even kicked the ball. But we will learn and do better.”

The winning goal was the product of both a superb moment of individual quality from Galeno and a panicked finish in which Arsenal made one mistake too many. Gabriel Martinelli returned possession to Porto by playing a careless pass intercepted by Otavio. Declan Rice then held off Galeno as he gathered and took aim, firing a superb long-range effort past goalkeeper David Raya. It all seemed a bit naive.

“Well, it's only the last ball, so if in 94 minutes they haven't had any naivety other than that, I think it's a bit cruel to judge him,” Arteta said . “But it's true that it had a big impact on the result. A lot of other things they did for the first time here were very good. Obviously I'm very disappointed with the way we gave the match at the end. I'm not handling this situation well enough.

“In the Champions League you are punished. If you can't win it, you don't lose it. We really dominated the match but we lacked goals, especially in the first half. We have to be a lot more aggressive , you have to break lines, to play forward and generate a lot more threat on this back line.

“In the second half there were much better things and we generated a lot of situations, without really creating much. We will learn from that.”

Rice had inadvertently set the tone for an unusually nervous display, committing a stupid foul after a careless passage of play only to receive a yellow card in the second minute. Arsenal's only real threat came from set pieces, with William Saliba and Leandro Trossard squandering promising openings, one in each half, with Arsenal's front three, Trossard, Bukayo Saka and Martinelli, amassing just two shooting all night between them.

Porto pressed well and Arsenal still struggled to find a way through. Porto should have taken the lead in the first half when Galeno missed two glorious chances in a matter of seconds, hitting the post with the goal at his mercy before firing the rebound wide. Arsenal have been so fluid in front of goal recently, racking up 11 unanswered goals in two away matches at West Ham and Burnley, but this was a night where they felt a little short on options in attack. Gabriel Jesus has 24 goals in 43 appearances in this competition and we have missed him a lot.

Arteta again opted not to give Eddie Nketiah the responsibility of leading his attack despite Trossard's subdued performance, making just one change as Jorginho replaced the former Brighton striker and Havertz took the lead. There's no reason to panic, but one of the few questions this young and talented Arsenal team needs to answer is whether they can perform under the greatest pressure. Time is on Arsenal's side, but they are still struggling to find an answer.