i am in total agreement. although we totally dominated the attacking portion of the pitch, we were defensively naive, surprisingly. sol campbell didn't have a night to remember... his shakiness caused us some heart stopping moments. vermaelen had to be an absolute monster (his super tackle towards the end of the game was just class. pure defensive class) to cover for him and also campbell's lack of pace and case of the jitters.

clichy was good, but his one schoolboy mistake where he total mistimed a routine clearance header could've cost us very dearly. similarly, song was good, but there were a few times that he got sucked into the attacking momentum and then he ended up losing the ball, leaving a huge gap in the middle. so again, it would seem like concentration and discipline is something that the arsenal players must focus on.

and like sigheart mentioned, the hero of them all was arshavin, doing all kinds of needless stunts and skills in our own half which wasn't the best thing to do. a couple of times he misplaced his passes very nonchalantly in the first half and it returned the attacking impetus to porto. so yes, the short one needs to buck up defensively. and that miss for what would've been the 3rd goal, that's almost unforgivable. =) aeroberg messaged me to wonder whether arshavin would get the same kinda condemnation bendtner would've received if it was bendtner who missed that chance instead. i guess i know the answer... =)

but overall, let's not take the gloss of the game. bendtner silenced his critics just like how walcott did by proving it on the pitch. i thought his penalty was absolutely beautiful. with penalties like these, even if the keeper can guess the right spot, he can't reach the ball cause it's right at the side. arshavin was tormentor in chief on the left and an attacking performance from him like that has been long overdue.

my favourite player: vermaelen. his contribution has been immense not just defensively, but scoring 8 goals for a defender during his debut season is really impressive. he doesn't talk big, just keeps his head down and gets the job done.

got the normal MOTD style highlights that doesn't use MKV format? =)

bro, i actually went there, but i can only download bits and pieces like 1st goal, 2nd goal....
perhaps i'm a noob but i can't seem to find the full match highlights download... =)

according to the commentator, it's a one off ball used in support of some AIDS awareness program or something to that effect...

not only was that idiot offside, the penalty was TERRIBLY soft!!!!

hull are trying to use rough house tactics to break the arsenal rhythm. again, i cannot understand how punks like mendy and fagan are still in the match without a yellow card. those fellas are just fouling our players time and again. hesselink was offside before the foul and even then the penalty was absolute crap. to add insult to injury, later on, bendtner gets a yellow card when it was boateng to struck him. boateng should've received a straight RED card for striking another player. clichy gets tackled in the box, no penalty. bendtner gets choke slammed to the ground, no penalty. he may have sent off boateng (way too late for me), but the referee has been absolute rubbish besides that.

having ranted about hull and the ref, arsenal aren't as fluid today as well. not really happening for us. i think walcott would be a great player to bring on and terrorise the 10 men, wear them down so that we can bang in as many goals as possible and thoroughly punish their sorry @$$e$.

i would've agreed had the stupid referee not given the penalty against campbell. if campbell's challenge was a penalty, the tackle on clichy is a stone walled penalty.

i know the old cliche goes that there are no easy games at this stage. however, there are always some games which are harder than the rest, so i would list out the teams who i really don't wanna meet at this stage:

1. barca - seriously, they can rip any team apart on their day
2. man u - i don't fancy meeting an english team, especially not one with a certain wayne rooney in red hot form

the rest, won't be easy, but i think those two on top are the most dangerous teams right now.

i wouldn't mind a match up like this though:

man u - barca
inter - cska
lyon - bayern
arsenal - bordeaux

lots have been said about united and chelsea and how we need the other teams to beat them, and the potential games where they can drop points.

for me, i think arsenal must take each game at a time, like wenger keeps saying. don't forget, we have our own suspension and injuries worries to handle. so let's keep trying our best to win one match at a time, and then we'll know how much chance we have to win the league.

and i also hope that vermaelen will only be suspended for 1 match, although i remember most cases of straight red cards to be a 3 match ban. *fingers crossed* but the only way we'll know for sure is when arsenal.com says something about it....

This post has been edited by lostasylum: Mar 22 2010, 04:04 PM

i totally agree, and that was essentially what i was saying in my previous post. we have our worries to handle, so let's not start counting how many points we need this team to drop and that team to drop. we firstly need to make sure that we put the points on the board every game we play, and then we'll be able to see clearly what chances we have.

i'm not saying that we should be pessimistic and all that, but i think by taking it one match at a time, we don't count our chickens before the eggs hatch and stops us from unconsciously putting our hopes too high as well.. =)

that's gonna be scary... of course i'm sure song will do well, but i'm not convinced at all by tweety bird. birmingham is a tricky team to play.. i hope we'll pull through... we need to make sure we score more goals and punish them. one or two goals may be insufficient...

i wouldn't be surprised one bit if rooney turns up for both the games against bolton and bayern. SAF has always been a wily one... he plays good mind games as well, so yeah, we should just take his injury news with a pinch of salt. =)