Porto 2-1 Arsenal – 17/02/10 – (Champions League) 18 February, 2010

I said before the game that last night was a massive opportunity for Lukasz Fabianski; with Almunia not performing it was his chance to make an impression and make his case for the no.1 shirt. Well he certainly made his impression, two calamitous mistakes find us losing going into the second leg.

He made silly mistakes in the Stoke game last month, add that to the performance at Wembley last season and Fabianski has gone from possible first choice ‘keeper to possibly never getting the chance again. He’s really hurt his own reputation now and will struggle to get back in the fans’ good book. Just a few weeks ago most Gooners were screaming for Fabianski to come in for Almunia, now we’re back to square one with some even calling for Mannone to step in – he had a good game at Fulham but he is not ready yet.

I’ll save the whole goalkeeper debate for another day but it is crystal clear we need to sign a stopper in the summer, we should’ve done it in January but that’s Arsene Wenger for you. No one we have at the moment is good enough for the level of football we play at. Everyone’s laughing at us and I’m fed up of it.

Anyway so on to the game and it was an explosive start, right from the first 30 seconds this game was intense and was one of the better Champions League 1st legs I’ve seen in a while, certainly for the neutral. We wanted to make an early impression but Porto had obviously seen how weak we are defending the counter attack and were causing us problems.

Inside two minutes Sol Campbell was called upon to make a goal-saving challenge when he was skinned on the left. Fair play to him though he got back and made a great tackle. Hulk had a shot go just wide of the far post but it was Porto’s lamest of chances that gave them the lead after 10 minutes. Clichy was easily avoided on the right wing and Valera put in a low cross straight to Fabianski who fumbled it over his own line. What a terrible, terrible piece of handling – it’s basic goalkeeping skills and he fucked it up on the big stage. I do feel sorry for him but it should never have happened.

We had chances of our own and responded well to the goal looking to get the quick equalizer. Bendtner had the best chance and looked to beat Helton at his far post but the shot was deflected and went just wide. From the resulting corner Cesc’s ball dropped deep to the back post for Rosicky to nod it back in, Campbell was there and headed it under the crossbar to make it 1-1.

The home side were clearly hurt by our goal and we were on top for the rest of the half. We really should’ve made the most of our pressure though and the closest we came was when Bendtner’s looping header was touched over the bar. However those two Bendtner chances I’ve mentioned are almost all he did all game, he was provided a few shooting opportunities but they were struck way off target. His only real threat was aerially and it’s clear he needs to work on his shooting. He’s only just back from injury though so I’ll let him off for now.

We started the second half well too and should’ve had a clear penalty five minutes in. Rosicky was tripped from behind in the area and went down (not like the home side did who appeared to be picked out by a sniper in row Z every time they felt contact from an Arsenal player, fucking pussies). Whether intentional or not it was definitely a trip and it was a clear penalty. The referee who is without a doubt one of the biggest cunts I’ve ever seen chose to ignore it despite falling for most of Porto’s dives throughout the game.

However Martin Hansson had yet to out-do himself. He was the man to miss Thierry Henry’s handball against Ireland but last night he went one better by almost pulling on a Porto shirt and scoring the second himself. A ball was played forward by the home side but was over hit and Campbell defended the ball for Fabianski to come and collect but accidentally got a touch. Fabianski stupidly picked it up and the referee responded to Porto’s claims for a free kick inside the box. The rules clearly state that a free kick is given in this scenario for an intentional back pass which it clearly wasn’t, however if in any doubt Fabianski should’ve booted it away and not tempt Hansson into a decision.

That wasn’t the worst part though. The referee demanded the ball off us waving it over and gave the ball straight to the Porto striker before clearly standing in Campbell’s way while he let them play on and pass it into the net. I couldn’t fucking believe it! If Martin Hansson was a Porto player in that position he would’ve done exactly the same thing, ushering the ball back off Fabianski then stand in Campbell’s way when he tried to defend it. It would’ve made no difference if he was wearing a yellow or blue and white shirt last night for that incident.

I think it has to be questioned; it wasn’t even just bad refereeing it was a clear obstruction on Arsenal. Wenger was furious that they were allowed to take it quickly insisting that the referee didn’t award them a free-kick, he didn’t even award them a penalty he pretty much just awarded them a goal for a back pass that wasn’t even a back pass.

I’m very upset about this as you can probably tell but it’s over now and there’s nothing we can do about it. The game ended up 2-1 and those two goals will stick in the memory a long time. We played better than Porto, should’ve scored more when we had the pressure on them but gave away two incredibly stupid goals. We’re still in it though because of that away goal and a simple 1-0 at home will send us through, but with this defence I don’t know if we can keep a clean sheet.

Watching the highlights back last night Fabianski wasn’t as bad as reported but he made two terrible decisions and you cannot afford to do that. He made a few decent saves but just those two little things over 90 minutes and he has ruined it for us. It’s a real shame but that’s just the way it is.

It was a bitter-sweet game for Sol Campbell who actually defended very well and scored his second Champions League goal in as many games but he will rue that second Porto goal. He did play well though and I’d have no problem with him coming in at any point the rest of this season.

The second leg isn’t for three weeks now so hopefully we’ll have a few players back by then. Next up it’s Sunderland and we need to pick ourselves up for that. Build up to that one to come tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.