Arsenal news Declan Rice suffers blow as Mikel Arteta makes blunt Gunners assessment
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Declan Rice picked up an early yellow card versus Porto
Arsenal fell to defeat against Porto in the first leg of their Champions League clash against Porto and will have to improve when they return to the Emirates in three weeks time.
It was a brutal return to the knockout stages of the Champions League for Arsenal on Wednesday night.
The Gunners looked set to navigate their first leg against Porto at the Estadio Do Dragao with honours even until Galeno's stoppage-time strike. The Brazilian forward took matters into his own hands with seconds remaining and unleashed a curling shot from 20 yards to beat David Raya and earn the win.
Mikel Arteta's side failed to record a shot on target across the 90 minutes and now must overcome a deficit to move into the quarter-finals of the competition.
They will hope to not extend a disappointing record after becoming one of five teams to lose five successive knockout stage matches in addition to Roma, Bayer Leverkusen, Celtic and Real Madrid.Mirror Football takes a look at the latest Arsenal news below.
Arteta's blunt assessment
The Arsenal boss expected better from his side and believes that they did not take enough care with the ball across the course of 90 minutes. The Spaniard acknowledged the Gunners were not threatening enough and was disappointed not to see more aggression.
He told TNT Sport: "Obviously we have to manage much better when you cannot win. The way we handled the ball on three occasions in deep areas is not good enough. And then it’s half-time. If you want to win the quarter-finals, you have to beat your opponent. And this is what we have to do at the Emirates now."
"We lacked threat," Arsena's head coach added. "We lacked much more threat, more aggression [was needed] especially when we had the ball in the final third, especially in the back as well, more purpose to help them. So we will tweak a few things to attack better especially because to be fair we haven’t conceded [chances] at all but we can do better."