Roma, Panathanaikos, Barcelona, Bayern Munich or Juventus
Add comment December 11th, 2008
Porto 2 – 0 Arsenal (Bruno Alves 39, Lopez 54)
Highlights here; Arsene’s reaction here
After last night’s defeat saw us finish the group stage in second place, the list of possible teams we could face in the next round is as above, and to be honest it’s pretty daunting.
That said, when you look at the list of teams we might’ve faced had we finished top (Inter, Sporting Lisbon, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Villarreal, Lyon), it’s clear there isn’t much of a gap in quality. In so far as reaching the next round goes, Gilberto Silva’s Panathanaikos would be a good draw, but a two-legged affair with Thierry Henry’s in-form Barcelona would be a fantastic showpiece occasion. The draw takes place on Friday 19th December at lunchtime, and should be fairly fascinating.
The game itself bore some resemblance to the 2-0 defeat at Burnely. A weakened side went behind and were then vulnerable on the counter-attack. The differences are potentially causes for concern: first of all that this side included many more experienced players, none of whom distinguished themselves; and secondly that in spite of the availability of those players, we created no chances at all.
The goals we conceded came not from overall inferiority, but individual sloppiness. First of all Abou Diaby lost his man at a corner (you could almost see him thinking to himself, “Now where was the last place I saw him…”), and then Mikael Silvestre seemingly forgot he was playing left-back to allow Lisandro Lopez to hammer in a second.
There was the odd bright-spark – Aaron Ramsey again looked very tidy in midfield, whilst Kieran Gibbs and Jack Wilshere both showed glimpses of their talent after coming off the bench.
Perhaps because the likes of Wilshere, Merida and Hoyte were all away with the senior side, it seems to have gone unnoticed that the U-18s won a tricky looking FA Youth Cup tie at Villa Park 3-2, with skipper Jay Emmanuel-Thomas (who has often impressed me) scoring the winner. Perhaps our Carling Cup exploits have detracted from the significance of the Youth Cup, but it’s still a valuable competition and one I’m pleased to see us win in.
So I’ve somehow managed to end on a positive.  Not bad, eh?
