As the Gunners look to slay the Dragons in their League tie
Arsenal fans could be forgiven for being a bit nervy tonight as they look to overturn a 1-0 first-leg defeat against Porto and keep their Champions League hopes alive, Mark Brus reports for Caughtoffside.
The Gunners were far from at their best as the Portuguese giants beat them 1-0 in the first game between these two sides, but many will still have Mikel Arteta’s Premier League leaders as the favorites to go through to the quarter-finals of this season’s Champions League—a competition they may even feel they could win.
Arsenal have won all three home games against Porto with the Portuguese side failing to find the net in any of those games.
— Orbinho (@Orbinho) March 12, 2024
History is undoubtedly on Arsenal’s side, with Porto having an abysmal record in trips to England. At the same time, they’ve also lost all three away games they’ve ever played against Arsenal, failing to score even once.
See below for these stats from Opta statistician Orbinho…
Porto have never won away from home in England in 22 attempts.
— Orbinho (@Orbinho) March 12, 2024
Still, Arsenal’s Champions League record isn’t the best, with so many of their recent attempts at getting past the last 16 ending in failure, and often embarrassingly so, as Barcelona and Bayern Munich have thrashed them.
But of course, AFC fans will also be aware that the last time they won a last-16 tie and made it into the quarter-finals, it was thanks to a second-leg home win over Porto when they overturned a one-goal deficit from the first leg…
Arsenal have been knocked out at the Last 16 stage in each of their last seven Champions League campaigns. The last time they did progress at this stage though was against Porto.
— Orbinho (@Orbinho) March 12, 2024
Does this all point towards an Arsenal win tonight? While you can take nothing for granted in football, it certainly seems like an almighty task from Porto to repeat the trick of their victory from a few weeks ago.
Arsenal predicted lineup to take on Porto: One change from Brentford win, injury to keep big name out
Arsenal face one of the most important games of their season so far as they take on Porto in tomorrow night’s Champions League clash at the Emirates Stadium.
The Gunners have been in superb form in the Premier League recently, winning eight games in a row, but during that run, they also suffered a surprise 1-0 defeat away to Porto in the first leg of this tie.
After such a long wait to return to this competition, Arsenal won’t want to drop out early, especially as there’s a case for saying Mikel Arteta has done such an excellent job with them that they might be serious contenders to win it for the first time in their history.
Arsenal will surely be favorites to overcome Porto, but they’re a team that can’t be taken lightly, as they showed in the first game.
Arteta’s men weren’t at their best that night, but what about tomorrow? Could this lineup below be the proper selection to prevent an upset in this tie?
Arsenal predicted the lineup to take on Porto…
As the lineup above shows, Arsenal is not entirely at full strength due to Gabriel Martinelli looking doubtful for this game. This means we will almost certainly see Leandro Trossard starting again, as he did against Brentford.
In fact, the only change from the 2-1 win over the Bees will be David Raya coming in in place of Aaron Ramsdale in goal, with the Spanish shot-stopper being ineligible to play against his parent club on Saturday.
All in all, this is surely a strong enough team for Arsenal to overcome that 1-0 deficit, especially as Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz, and even Declan Rice have been in such fine scoring form recently.
Arsenal recently put six past West Ham and Sheffield United, as well as five past Burnley and four past Newcastle, so they’ll be hoping to find something similar tomorrow night to book their place in the Champions League quarter-finals.
