Former Aston Villa forward Gabby Agbonlahor does not feel that Mikel Arteta did enough to influence the game in Arsenal’s favour as they lost to Porto last night.
Mikel Arteta only turned to his bench once as Arsenal lost 1-0 against Porto in a Champions League clash on Wednesday evening.
The Gunners looked set to secure a 0-0 draw in the Estadio do Dragao, before with virtually the last kick of the game, Porto attacker Galeno curled the ball into the bottom corner from long range.
Now, in the return leg of this round of 16 tie at the Emirates Stadium on March 12th, Arsenal must overturn this one goal deficit if they are to progress to the quarter-finals of the competition.
The north London club will still fancy their chances of winning this two-legged affair on aggregate, but Arteta will be furious with his side for handing the advantage to their opponents so late on in Portugal.
There is an argument, though, that the Spanish coach brought that bitter ending to the match on himself. Throughout the 90 minutes last night, as his side struggled to click as an attacking force, and gave up a number of chances in their own defensive third, he only used one substitute.
Mikel Arteta accused of poor game management v Porto
In the 74th minute, he brought on Jorginho to replace Leandro Trossard. Given the Belgian had been leading the line for the Gunners, this was undeniably a defensive change. Clearly, and perhaps understandably, Arteta would have been happy to return to the Emirates Stadium with the tie still goalless.
However, there were a number of underperforming Arsenal players on the pitch last night. Gabriel Martinelli had a shocker, by his own standards. William Saliba was also far from his best. The manager might have been wise to pull a few more of his struggling stars out of the firing line whilst his side still had their clean sheet intact.
talkSPORT pundit Gabby Agbonlahor certainly feels that the Arsenal boss could have done more from the touchline to influence the outcome of this match. He said (22/02/2024, 06:22), “you know, they only made one sub last night. You look at the bench – Eddie Nketiah didn’t get on, he could have scored goals. Emile Smith Rowe, [Fabio] Vieira. He doesn’t make enough changes in games, for me.”
There are plenty of ‘what if’ moments from last night that will be on Arteta’s mind right now, beyond the substitutions he might have made. The story of this match could have been so different had Kai Havertz and Gabriel Magalhaes been able to actually test the goalkeeper when they had chances to score from set-piece situations. Or, if Martinelli had not given the ball away in the dying seconds, when his intercepted switch of play led to Porto’s winner.
The Gunners need to put such regrets behind them, though, and focus fully on turning this tie around in the second-leg, which they are capable of doing if they can produce their best back in north London.
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