Gunners lose out on top spot

12 April 2012

Below-par Arsenal slumped to a 2-0 defeat at Porto on Wednesday night to leave themselves with a tougher path towards Champions League glory.

With his side already qualified for the last 16 and with several key men - like captain Cesc Fabregas and striker Robin van Persie - carrying injuries, manager Arsene Wenger felt confident enough to take a calculated gamble with his team selection against a well-organised Portuguese outfit, who had never lost here to an English side in a European tie.

However, the move back-fired as the much-changed Gunners never really got going and were undone by goals either side of the break by Bruno Alves and Lisandro Lopez.

Arsenal will now be drawn against one of the group winners next Friday - which include Juventus, Bayern Munich and Barcelona - and so must play the second leg away from home.

Emmanuel Eboue had been jeered off when he was replaced toward the end of last week's Barclays Premier League game against Wigan following some poor touches. However, the 25-year-old, playing at right-back, was given a warm welcome by the small travelling band of some 1,500 or so Arsenal fans at the Estadio do Dragao, which was far from full.

The first real chance opened up for the visitors on 25 minutes when Nicklas Bendtner - this week in bright green boots - fed Aaron Ramsey on the right edge of the Porto box. The young Welshman turned his marker and fired in a low, angled shot, which Da Silva Helton did well to push around the far post.

But it was no surprise when the home side took the lead six minutes before the break. A corner from the left was floated into the Arsenal box, and Bruno Alves arrived in front of Abou Diaby at the far post to head past Manuel Almunia.

The visitors fell further behind in the 54th minute. Arsenal gave possession away in midfield, with Francisco Fernando picking up the ball and feeding it through to Lisandro at the edge of the box.

The striker made no mistake, smashing his shot into the top right corner.

And it would have been all over for the Gunners had Cristian Rodriguez not pulled his angled shot wide when played in on the overlap down the left.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in