Arsenal 5-0 FC Porto: Fabregas Not Missed as Nasri & Arshavin Run Riot

Common perception has it that the Champions League knockout stages represent the highest standards anywhere to be found in the game. The crème de la crème of world football. Where the best players, meanest defenders and most skilful attackers ply their trade and where the margin for error is at it’s thinnest. And yet, of all the major professional games played around the globe last night, only one presented a higher margin of victory than Arsenal’s 5-0 demolition of FC Porto – Changchun Yatai’s 9-0 win over Persipura in Group F of the Asian Champions League.

That UEFA’s version of the Champions League represents the best brand of football anywhere to be found on the planet is certainly up for more debate than the overall verdict on Porto’s performance at the Emirates on Tuesday though. That isn’t really up for discussion. “Dragons humiliated in London,” surmises Portuguese sports daily A Bola in it’s leading headline, and that pretty much says it all about a hapless Porto side that were well and truly battered by a vibrant Arsenal.

Nicklas Bendtner was the man who walked away with the plaudits and the match ball (though he seemed completely at a loss with what to do with it in the post-match interview), but it was a Frenchman and a Russian who really stood out in this one-sided affair, Samir Nasri and Andrey Arshavin rattling the Portuguese champions like a baby with a new shaky toy.

Nasri, operating in a central role usually reserved for captain Fabregas, excelled throughout, putting in a superb performance that makes one question whether he shouldn’t be played there more often. His goal capped off a fine game, ducking and weaving to seemingly beat the same players about three times each before lashing the ball past Helton into the net. But it was the all-round energy and intelligence in his play that deserves highest praise.

“In the last few weeks he has got stronger and more confidence,” Arsene Wenger said of Nasri after Arsenal’s 3-1 win over Burnley in which the former Marseille player also impressed, and the signs are there that he is well and truly over the bad injury suffered in pre-season.

Arshavin too was brilliant, helping create 3 of the 5 goals and twisting Porto full back Jorge Fucile so many times he must have felt like an overused corkscrew. In fairness Fucile received a desperate lack of assistance from his midfielders, but overall his scrambled attempts at defending were like his name but with a ‘t’ replacing the ‘c’. A personal nightmare evening was capped off when he fouled Emmanuel Eboue in the box leading to Arsenal’s fifth goal.

As for Bendtner, the nature of his first ever senior career hat-trick was all rather simple in the end – two tap-ins and a penalty. Having said that he managed to make a mockery of similar chances in Arsenal’s most recent league game, so perhaps progress has been made. The Dane is a much-maligned figure for some, including sections of Arsenal’s own support, but I’ve never fully understood the reasons for this personally. At just 22 he is growing into a central target man role nicely and is also sure to improve, though having said that a tally of just 17 goals in 74 league appearances for the Gunners will have to be improved on in the long-term.

Though Nasri’s was the Hollywood goal it was Eboue’s that impressed me most. As you’ll know from my opinion of Wayne Rooney’s goal vs Arsenal earlier this season I’m a sucker for a well executed counter-attack, and this was another executed with real style.

Arsenal now move brashly on to the quarter finals along with Bayern Munich, but for Porto defeat leaves their season hanging by a thread. Out of Europe and sitting 11 points behind leaders Benfica in the Portuguese Liga Sagres (and also denied availability of one of their best players for a chunk of the rest of the season after Hulk was suspended for the now infamous CCTV steward brawl), all is not quite well at the Dragons’ lair. Jesualdo Ferreira’s side did briefly trouble Sol Campbell and co early in the second half, but overall Porto’s intensity and tempo were far too lacklustre to threaten their contrastingly sparkling hosts.

(photo credit: Ryu Voelkel)

Arsenal, Champions League, Europe, FC Porto, Samir Nasri