Villarreal 1 Arsenal 1
Manchester United 2 Porto 2
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What price an Arsenal-Porto semi-final ?
Adebayor’s away goal sets up an interesting second leg
Don’t assume Arsenal will go through, even if Gallas’s scan brings good news today. The defender could be out for the rest of the season with knee ligament damage.
Old Trafford was the venue for the best Porto performance I have ever seen. Man United missed Rio Ferdinand and were tired after a tough 3-2 win against Aston Villa. Sir Alex gambled and lost by choosing to play on Sunday rather than Saturday. That was an expensive roll of the dice.
In the first half at El Madrigal, Arsenal were abject. They were dire. Inept beyond belief. Adebayor ran offside, let the ball bounce off his heel, played like a plank, made Gooners wonder why Wenger turned down £19 million for him.
They lost Almunia and Gallas to injury but the goal they conceded came after ten minutes when both their most experienced players were on the pitch.Villarreal could have scored twice before Senna, the man with the phenomenal shooting technique, fired a 25-yarder past Almunia.
Always an accomplished outfit with fine teamwork, Villarreal made Arsenal look like a pub team. It was embarrassing.
Almunia won a 50-50 with striker Rossi and had to go off with an injury to same ankle that Diouf kicked.
In 38, Song stupidly clipped Rossi just outside the box and the stocky Italian fell heavily onto the vulnerably positioned right leg of Gallas, twisting his knee ligament in a ghastly manner. The injury looked really bad. Gallas went off on a stretcher, came back on, was replaced by Djourou.
Song had a good game but that dopey and entirely unnecessary challenge cost Arsenal a free-kick and the services of Gallas, their best defender. Then No 6 Eguren got above Toure and headed a corner of over the bar. Villarreal missed headed chances like that throughout the match.
At half-time the question was : have Arsenal ever played worse and been only 1-0 down?
Still, this was a 180-minute game and we had only seen 45.
In 66, Fabregas flighted a perfect diagonal cross onto Adebayor’s chest and he hooked a high volley into the net. No defence in the world could have prevented that goal.
Villarreal are a classy side who are tactically superior to Arsenal. They have more ideas, better teamwork, far better crossing, an ability to work their way round the side of your defence.
Porto were tactically superior to Manchester United and could have won 5-2 at Old Trafford.
The Villa game took a lot out of the champions and 48 hours later they looked tired and ragged. Porto were smart, attacked brightly in good numbers, rather than playing their normal counter-attacking game, with Christian Rodriguez bamboozling Jonny Evans after Cristiano Ronaldo gave the ball away sloppily and did not track back.
As a game, it was really fun to watch. Fantastic entertainment. Lots of action.
Rooney scored the first goal from a backpass and later flicked a Gary Neville throw to sub Tevez, who is mustard at the near post. That made it 2-1 but 2-1 would have been a travesty, daylight robbery. Porto fought back and Mariano levelled it at the end.
VERDICT : Arsenal’s result was better than their performance.
They have yet to concede a Champions League goal at the Emirates in five games this season. And a 0-0 will put them into the semi-final to face Porto. Or Rooney and Ronaldo.
It’s always a thrill to watch players like Fabregas and Rooney, who have football brains. Cesc made a goal, Wayne pinched one goal, made another.
Without Lucio and Klose, I doubt if Bayern Munich will beat Barcelona tonight. But fireball Franck Ribery will give the Catalan maestros plenty to think about. The whole of this season’s Champions League seems to be about : which English club gets a crack at Barcelona.
We’re going to a friend’s for dinner tonight and I don’t know which game we will be watching. A 100% fit Torres is better than Drogba, and Rafa is still on a roll, so I expect Liverpool to beat Chelsea over two legs. It might be very, very tight. And Chelsea might win. If Chelsea are good enough to put Liverpool out, they are good enough to win the Champions League.
No London club has ever done that.
VILLARREAL (4-4-2): Diego Lopez; Angel Lopez, Gonzalo, Godin, Capdevila; Cani (Mati Fernandez, h-t), Senna, Eguren, Ibagaza (Franco, 79); Rossi, Llorente (Pires, 70). Subs not used: Viera (gk), Kahveci, Venta, Fuentes.
ARSENAL (4-2-3-1): Almunia (Fabianski, 27); Sagna, Touré, Gallas (Djourou, 43), Clichy; Denilson, Song; Walcott (Eboué, 79), Fabregas, Nasri: Adebayor. Subs not used: Vela, Silvestre, Bendtner, Gibbs.