Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal looked quite bleak against Porto yesterday in the Champions League last 16 first leg. FC Porto were technically very disciplined and hardly allowed any space in Arsenal’s midfield. The Gunners struggled to get even one shot at Porto’s goal while conceding in the dying minutes in what was a shocker of a starting position from David Raya.
The Arsenal manager spoke about the same in the post-match press conference. He said he expected better from his team and said that they didn’t take care of the ball across the game. Mikel agreed on how Arsenal didn’t look threatening and the Spaniard expressed his disappointment for his squad not showing enough aggression.
He told TNT Sport: “Obviously we have to manage much better when you cannot win. The way we handled the ball on three occasions in deep areas is not good enough. And then it’s half-time. If you want to win the quarter-finals, you have to beat your opponent. And this is what we have to do at the Emirates now.”
“We lacked threat,” Arsenal’s coach added.
“We lacked much more threat, more aggression [was needed] especially when we had the ball in the final third, especially in the back as well, more purpose to help them. So we will tweak a few things to attack better especially because to be fair we haven’t conceded [chances] at all but we can do better.”
