Arteta is killing the team I stressed myself to build,if not how can you bench a world-class player for someone that is not even suppose to be playing for Burnley, This is not the legacy I left behind’: Arsene Wenger tells Arteta to bench £70m player against Newcastle if truly He wants to earn His respect
Arsenal went into their Champions League Round of 16 first leg game against Portuguese side Porto as firm favourites following their genuinely impressive run of form in the Premier League. Still, you wouldn’t have known that from the game itself.
It’s not necessarily that Mikel Arteta’s men were notably worse than their opposite numbers – neither side were great – they just couldn’t create a single threatening attack.
The home side had less control of the game, as evidenced by their 35% possession, but they fashioned the clearer chances and should’ve gone 1-0 up through Wenderson Galeno in the first half, something he made up for with a 94th-minute wonder strike.
Ultimately, it’s not terminal for the Gunners’ European ambitions, but it’s thrown a wrench in the works and while the entire team were subpar, two players were particularly ineffective.
Bukayo Saka’s performance in numbers
The first player who was notably poor today was Bukayo Saka.
Now, Mr Arsenal himself has been in scintillating form of late, so his underwhelming showing against the Dragões was all the more noticeable and certainly won’t help his case in the recent discussions on his ‘world-class’ status.
The Standard’s Simon Collings gave the Hale End gem a 5/10 for his showing and described him as ‘not really in the game very much’ and that when he was, he ‘lacked end product.’
It’s a harsh appraisal of the usually brilliant 22-year-old, but it’s not unfair, and his numbers from the game show that.
In his 94 minutes of football, he registered a paltry expected goals figure of just 0.02, had no shots on or off target, just one that was blocked, only three of his 11 crosses were accurate, and lost possession 13 times.
In all, it was a game to forget for the club’s talisman, although there was a man on the opposite wing who probably had an even worse night in red and white.
Gabriel Martinelli’s performance in numbers
While Saka struggled to have any sort of impact on the game from the right-hand side, Gabriel Martinelli was finding it just as challenging to exert an influence from the left.
Unlike his performance against Burnley last time out, the Brazilian was practically anonymous in Portugal, and when he did have the ball, he struggled to do anything with it.
The former Ituano man was also given a 5/10 for his showing by Collings, who simply described him as ‘quiet for much of the game.’
However, while he received the same match rating from the Standard journalist, his numbers from the night are even more worrying than Saka’s.
In 94 minutes of action, he registered just 0.01 expected assists, had zero shots of any kind, failed in five of his eight dribbles, averaged a passing accuracy of just 69%, was inaccurate with both of his crosses, lost 16 of his 18 ground duels, and most damning of all, he lost possession 27 times – once every 3.48 minutes.
In all, it was not a good day at the office for Arsenal’s attackers, and they’ll be looking to make amends for their poor performances when Porto travel to the Emirates on March 12th for the second leg
