Match Day Thread Arsenal vs Sporting CP - Matchday Thread

Sporting now down to 10 men. Ugarte with a second yellow card after a horrible challenge on Saka. Won’t change much as there’s like 3 minutes until penalties.

 

Penalties it is. Urgh. We dominated ET, but Sporting defended well and Adán made some monumental saves to keep Sporting in it. Honestly though, we’ve not been great over both legs.

Penalties will be a horrible way to exit this comp.

 

I don't think we've played well in a single europa game this season have we?

 

Sporting win 5-3 on penalties. I could have accepted losing over 90 mins, but losing at ET is hard to take.

Unfortunately we didn’t deserve to go through over both legs. Really hope this doesn’t destroy our confidence ahead of the Palace game.

 

If we’re being honest, no we haven’t. I did think we’d get better as we got to the KO stages, but it didn’t happen. I don’t think anyone can really begrudge Sporting winning tonight though.

 

Harsh. I don't think they deserved it TBH.

Viera really annoys me - he's like Ozil, he drifts in and out of games, disappears completely for extended periods. When Odegaard came on we started to boss the game again.

 

Eggs really now only in one basket. No tiredness now. No excuses.

 

Sporting deserved it over the 2 legs. After the 2 early injuries and the messed up team changes we didnt gel. I just hope Saliba's okay (tbf Holding played well) and I hope it doesnt knock our confidence in the PL! COYG!!!

Agree with the "The Bear" Viera annoys the **** out of me and should have been subbed for Odegaard at half time, I guess the early injuries put paid to that happening, can't have lady luck week in week out... anyway!

 

I realise we have bigger fish to fry but it’s annoying that, for yet another year, we will have to wait for a European trophy. I’ve never seen us win one in my life and that wait is going to carry on for another year (at bare minimum). Irritating.

I would be less worried about the emotional and physical toll on the players if we’d got knocked out in 90 mins, but getting KO’d at ET has me concerned about the way we’ll react and whether we’ll have enough in the tank for that Palace match.

 

Above all else it's hard to care about a competition when the team you support clearly don't care about it. Shame. If that was a CL game against the same opposition I predict we would have battered them. Urgh.

 

Like I said, what annoys me is it went all the way to ET just to lose. And we suffered multiple injuries tonight too. And the players were made to work hard by a hungry Sporting side, players looked knackered toward the end. I wish we got KO’d in normal time.

I really wanted us to win this competition, so I am annoyed that we are out. Beating Palace and going 8 points clear at the top will make this ****ty feeling go away, but until/if that happens, and until I know the extent of Saliba’s injury, I am going to be in a foul mood for a couple of days.

 

Gutted to go out after that slog of a tie. Just hoping that the injury to Saliba isn't too bad, because we are going to need him for the run in.

Palace in 3 days time isn't ideal

Must win game

 

and now Palace have sacked Viera. Look what happened last time when we played a sacked Manager team, Everton! hmmmmm Lets hope Palace dont do an Everton on us!

 

To be fair, we played Everton away from home which is a ground we haven’t done well at traditionally for the last 6 years. And Dyche had a full week of training with the Everton players to incorporate his ideas, whereas any new manager Palace hire now won’t have enough time to get to know their squad etc.

Obviously we still have to be cautious of the threat they possess and the fact they are battling for their lives, but we should still be expecting to win this game.

 

I think that Sporting deserved to go through over the 2 legs. We were lucky to come away with a draw from the 1st leg .Their equaliser was fantastic. Their goalkeeper was outstanding. That's now 29 years since our last european trophy

 

Na we had like 65% possession in the first leg and twice as many shots on target over both legs,
We should have won that game in ET.