Arsenal 0-0 Sporting: Gunners lean into their real strength to make the Champions League semis

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction

Arsenal are through the semi-finals of the Champions League for the second year running, for the first time in the club’s history, which is something to celebrate. And yet this morning I have this strange sensation of underwhelmed happiness. I can’t think of a better way to try and explain it.

Making it through was the aim, we achieved that, and that’s good. But if you were looking for some kind of reassurance from the performance last night, it wasn’t really there – at least not in the attacking sense. I thought we defended well enough, bar a few minutes towards the end of the first half when a David Raya mistake gave us the jitters, and Sporting hit the post just before the break. Aside from that, the visitors caused us few problems – they had just one shot on target all night.

But then so did we. A single shot on target. Can you remember it? It came in the 30th minute when Declan Rice swung a corner to the back post, and Martin Zubimendi headed it down, into the ground, and the keeper picked it up easily. That was as much as Rui Silva between the sticks for Sporting had to contend with. Statistically a ‘shot on target’, but almost no threat. The sense right now that we are a blunt instrument going forward was prevalent pre-game and I’m not sure we did anything to change that over the course of the 90 minutes.

Eberechi Eze was probably our most effective attacking player, operating behind that front three of doom which, once again, felt like a trio that gave us far less than the sum of their parts. Noni Madueke was clumsy and wasteful in possession, Viktor Gyokeres likewise and it was the kind of feeble game we’ve seen from him many times this season, while Gabriel Martinelli was probably the brightest of the trio but still ineffective in the opposition final third. Let me clear, I’m not at all criticising the effort, because I think every player in red and white gave their all, but from a technical perspective, this combination up front gives you little chance of causing any team consistent problems because they either can’t get the ball, can’t keep the ball, or do anything with it when they do – especially with each other.

It was summed up for me by a Gyokeres pass early in the second half when he looked to combine with Madueke on the edge of their box and played a pass to their left back instead, missing his teammate’s run by some distance. You talk about players not being on the same wavelength, but this went beyond that. It wasn’t long before Mikel Arteta made a change and put on Kai Havertz in his place. When the basics and fundamentals up front are so poor, it’s little wonder we can’t cause the opposition too many problems.

Eze, as I said, was the best of the bunch, demonstrating a willingness to shoot and put his foot through the ball. There was a moment when Raya hit it long, Havertz actually won a duel and headed it down, and Eze fired over, and it felt like someone had turned the lights on despite the fact the shot was off-target. It was just the kind of simple stuff we should be able to do as a matter of course but it so rarely happens.

An injury to Madueke is far from ideal, despite the fact I think his withdrawal would have been imminent anyway. Max Dowman came on, and at this point of the season, we need as many hands on deck as possible so hopefully it’s not too serious. Nevertheless, in the continued absence of Bukayo Saka, the manager has some serious thinking to do about who starts there on Sunday anyway, because the summer signing was once again not at the level.

For me, concerns about the ongoing impotence of our attack, which I understand completely and believe is a significant issue for this team, means we’re likely to see Arsenal lean into our greatest strength between now and the end of the season. If there’s something to take from last night, it’s that when Sporting absolutely had to find a goal, we strangled them out of the game. In the last 15 minutes or so, we didn’t just defend very well to prevent them creating chances, we actually controlled the game, which isn’t something we’ve always been able to do of late.

We had nearly 62% possession in that period, a lot of it in their half, and you can see the momentum graph (via Sofascore) tell the story of that well (that late flash of blue was the shot which fizzed wide when we inexplicably decided not to keep the ball from a corner and handed possession back to them):

If you’re looking at this team and identifying where the best talent is, that leaves you in no doubt. I think sometimes we take the quality of our two centre-halves for granted, because that partnership between William Saliba and Gabriel gave Sporting’s centre-forward nothing. They could have played another Luis Suarez up there and it would have made little difference. Christian Mosquera slotted in nicely at right-back, and on the left Piero Hincapie put in a monster performance. At one point, in the 90th minute, he launched an incredible forward sprint to support Leandro Trossard, then had to leg it all the way back when the move broke down. His energy levels were incredible.

Ahead of them, Declan Rice led the team for passing with 97% accuracy a day after he was too ill to train, and he was aided and abetted by a performance from Martin Zubimendi that was much more like the player we saw in the first half of the season. Not only was he snappy defensively and well aware of his responsibilities there, he also got forward to good effect on a number of occasions. I don’t have access to these stats, but it felt – to me at least – like he probably had more touches in the opposition box than any of our nominal attackers.

Which is to say, if you’re pinning your hopes on things clicking up front and the goals to start flying in, I wouldn’t hold my breath. That would obviously be very useful, but I think what this season has demonstrated quite clearly is that in terms of attacking talent, despite having added to the numbers, we’re still some way short of where we really need to be. Because if we had that on top of the foundations we’ve built further back, we’d probably be in an even better position in the league than we already are (which – to be clear – is a position we’d all have taken at the start of the campaign).

But it is what it is. There’s no point in ignoring the reality, and it’s on that basis that Mikel Arteta has to navigate what remains of this season. A season which still has much on offer, and while I can barely think about anything other than Sunday at this point, we should step back for a moment and celebrate the fact we’ve made such progress in Europe for the second successive season. It’s not that long ago that a Champions League semi-final felt like a pipe dream, now we’ve done it two years in a row and that does demonstrate that we’ve come a long way, even if there is still room for improvement.

Afterwards, Mikel Arteta acknowledged that need, saying:

We are not perfect, we need to improve things, that’s for sure, we recognise that, but there’s value in what these players have done because they deserve it.

But he also made sure to sound the right notes before that big game on Sunday:

This is a massive push to win the semi-final of the Champions League. It’s extremely tough, and we know what we’ve done. We deserve it, fully deserve it as well, and we’re going to enjoy it because we deserve it.

There is a reason why we are the only English team in the competition, because this league and this schedule takes the hell out of you, and it’s very difficult to do what we’ve done. I’m especially happy for our supporters because they were right behind the team today and we’re going to have two magical nights, one in Madrid and another one here in London against Atletico, so I’m very proud of them.

Ultimately, in a cup competition the only thing that matters is that you make it through, and we did that. Perhaps we didn’t get what we wanted with regards the attacking performance, but let’s not pretend that elimination would have been anything other than really damaging for what lies ahead this weekend and beyond. It feels like these players need every tiny thing that can produce confidence and belief right now. Last night it came from positions we know we can rely on, and if there’s any way to find a spark in the final third again, it will serve us well. I suspect the front three on Sunday might well be different from the one we saw last night, so hopefully that will help.

So, two legs of Mikel Arteta versus Diego Simeone will be seen as two managers with a kind of similar identity coming head to head to grind a way to the final in Budapest. That can all wait for a while though, because we have bigger fish to fry on Sunday. The biggest fish of all in Premier League terms, so get the lads rested, recuperated, hopefully a couple back from injury, and let’s focus on that.

Ok, I’ll leave it there for this morning. We will have a post-game Arsecast for you a little later on, until then, have a good one.

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