Not a whole lot to say about this one. We went in with a seriously weakened squad, played like one, and were beaten by a mediocre opposing performance. I didn’t catch more than the highlights, which weren’t very high, in my opinion.

The loss of top spot in Group G hasn’t seemed to cost us much, though. The two pools from which the draw will come for 1st & 2nd don’t seem very much different to me. But you just know we’ll draw Barça, so it doesn’t matter. They would have found a way for us to draw Barça even if we had taken first. There’s just too much press action in it for any other outcome. So Barça, here we come. Henry & Hleb… should be fun. I’d very much like a Nasri hat trick at the away leg, with Samir telling Alex, “You see? That’s how.”

At least one news outlet reported that the fans eased up on Emmanuel Eboue at Porto last night. I suppose that’s good to hear. I know he played the whole 90, but I’m not sure how he did. It’s good to know he can so quickly get on a pitch after The Ebooing and put in a decent effort. I’d still have my head in the sand.

Next up, Middlesbrough away. Not a match we’ve had very good luck with these past few years. But seeing as so many of our starters stayed home from last night’s match, we should be well rested enough and at as full strength as we can be at the moment. Although, I haven’t yet heard of Nasri’s status. Eduardo is getting closer and closer, but Rosicky appears to be going the other way. Sucks, that. What also sucks is that the match at Riverside is not being televised here. So, it’s off to troll the torrent sites for me late Saturday morning. Once again I’ll be camped out late Saturday night, squinting at the laptop, headphones jammed in, Walcott home kit on, Pinot Noir in hand and cashews at the ready. It’s tough to be a Yank.

So, the Scurvy Prognostication of The Match is:

Middlesbrough 0-1 Arsenal

Another ugly win, anyone? Yes? With, let’s see… our one goal coming from… (rubbing crystal balls)… CESC. It has been foretold. So let it be written. And such.

Adebayor 10, Walcott 11, Silvestre 19, Diaby 22, Song 49, Ramsey 90 – Divers: None

Wow. That is all. Just… wow. The following is pretty much a paraphrasing of what I was writing as I watched the match late last night:

The Turks came screaming out of the gate and threatened, most likely pumped up by the atmoshpere, but we just handled them. Handled, I tell you. They made several runs up the left that were scary, but we dealt with them all, some clumsily, but dealt with nonetheless. The whistles in that stadium are a bizarre thing to hear. It was an ebbing and flowing cacophony of shrieking whistles that seemed to absolutely bathe the players on the pitch. If it was affecting any of them, they didn’t show it. And, they only lasted about ten minutes. Emmanuel Adebyor found his way up the center and slotted home past the keeper to open the scoring. About sixty seconds later at 11′ Theo Walcott said “Oh yeah, like this?” And scored our second, with a classy little hop over the keeper and a tightly angled shot to find the net from the right. The whistles then died.

Another minute later and Samir Nasri almost put in a third, but the keeper got a hand on it. Not to be outdone, Fenerbahçe came charging down (out of frustration, perhaps?) and forced Manuel Almunia to earn his keep at 14′. The announcers simply can’t believe what they’re seeing. They’re talking about looking up records at the half to see if any have been broken. At 18′ Song decides he’d rather elbow a runner up the left than just defend and gives the opposition a free kick which Mikael Silvestre puts away nicely… in the wrong net. Three minutes later, Abou Diaby finds a goal not unlike the first two. 1-3. I can’t hear them, but the announcer tells us that 800 Arsenal faithful have made the trip to Istanbul. Brilliant!

At 49′ there’s a free kick in from Cesc Fabregas which gets bobbled in the box and lands at the foot of Alexandre Song who swiftly crashes it home! Nice shot, Alex! At 78′, although the announcer says it probably should have been disallowed for dangerous play, Guiza scores a second for Fenerbahçe. To me, it looked like he got his foot down soon enough before Almunia got there, but… too little too late anyway.

As the match is winding down, it’s gotten eerily quiet in the stadium, a marked contrast to the start of the match. Fenerbahçe fans know their European efforts are probably at an end. At 92′ Emmanuel Eboue should have made it 2-5, but for some reason known only to Eboue, he didn’t pull the trigger from 10yds out. But that’s ok, because the sprightly Aaron Ramsey opens up his European account with only seconds remaining in injury time, a flashy shot off the left post that caroms in to put the match to rest.

It’s at this point that I began breathing again. I only managed two beers throughout because I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. As the announcer said, the match was a display on “How not to defend” on both sides of the ball, but our offense just smothered them. That should pretty much seal up our ticket into the knock-out rounds from Group G. I think we only have two home matches left to play, no? And one away? Looking forward to them all. Great job you GUNNERS! Next up, West Ham United away. I do sincerely hope we put the stones to them for the full 90.

The boys are headed into some historically hostile territory for their match against Fenerbahçe tomorrow night. I just read Goonerholic’s lovely little preview where he mentions the sides having not met since 1979, and he was there as a visiting supporter. Ah, what a trip that must have been. Check it out.

It looks like our injury list for this one isn’t quite as bad as I thought it was going to be. Gallas and Sagna are still out along with all the usuals, and we will miss Kolo as he’s suffered a ligament injury in his right shoulder. But on the plus side, Samir Nasri, Niklas Bendtner and Johann Djourou should all be available. Johann will most likely start along with Silvestre in the middle of the back four, flanked by Eboue and Clichy. I’m hoping to see Nasri start on the left, with Theo on the right and Cesc & Song in the middle. We will probably see Adebayor & RvP start up front, although I’d like to see Bendtner there with RvP and save Adebayor for the weekend. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if we go with a 4-5-1 instead with Nik on the bench to start. Blech…

I honestly  don’t know what to make of the Turkish side. All indications are that this could be a pretty tough place to go, but that the team themselves “ain’t what they used to be“. That can be argued for us as well, I suppose… although you won’t get that particular argument from me. But I like our chances, and coming off the Everton match has to have filled our men with belief. So, the Scurvy Prognostication of The Match is:

Fenerbahçe 0-1 Arsenal

That one goal will come from Emmanuel Adebayor on excellent service from Theo charging up the right, through a pelt storm of Lira. Robin van Persie will head over the bar six or seven times and Cesc Fabregas will put another few into the stands wide of the net. Tomas Rosicky will sigh… and then change the channel.

Will we have what it takes to bounce back? Has the last two days been enough to recover? Only tonight will tell. Porto just beat Fenerbahçe, and are in good form. We’re home (yeah, yeah… I know) and probably looking to do some damage to someone for the loss to Hull. So, the Scurvy Prognostication of The Match is:

Arsenal 2-1 Porto

I really hope I’m wrong about leaking a goal, but I just feel like the back four have been shaken. Perhaps Wenger’s shaking things up back there for tonight? We’ll see.

Bangoura 64′, Gallas 88′ – Divers: Vukojevic, Bangoura

Very disappointing, from several aspects. First, the performance was definitely not what we’ve been seeing from Arsenal of late. I don’t know if it was the venue, the travel, or what… but they were not firing on all cylinders last night in Kiev. We had a few good, clear shots but they did not find their way into the net. Emmanuel Adebayor had an absolute sitter at 19′ that should have put us in front, but he delivered it to the home supporters instead. We seemed to be playing more defensively, with Alexandre Song starting in somewhat of a sweeper role in front of the back line. But that went out the window at 62′ when Bacary Sagna allowed his marker, Ognjen Vukojevic, to back into him, reach around, grab Bacary by his ass, and then throw them both to the ground. It might be the first tandem dive I’ve ever witnessed. The Official pointed to the spot and we were down 1-0. Poor Bacary looked like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. I imagaine that I must have looked exactly the same. Fucking gobsmacked. Nine minutes later, Bangoura took a dive near the edge of the penalty area and got himself booked for his trouble. Apparently, Dynamo Kyiv’s strategy is to dive their way out of the Group Stage. I’m not certain this is a sound approach.

If we appeared somewhat in control up to the penalty, then that all crumbled in our hands soon after…  and we should count ourselves fortunate that William Gallas was able to flick that ball home not two minutes from time. Then, it looked as if the goal had given us momentum to perhaps score another, but the official decided he’d rather cut injury time in half and go have a pint. So, rather than share the lead in our group with Porto, we’re in the middle with these Ukrainian cheats. I can’t wait to meet them at Ashburton Grove. I still firmly believe we have more than we need to take the group outright, but a result like this is truly disappointing. Ah, but that’s football.

Not a very good day for officiating in the Champions League, was it? Bad calls, screwing up the clock… They even red carded the wrong player in another match (Celtic, I think). How can three officials agree to send the wrong player off the pitch? Disgraceful. I’m sure it must be a hard job, officiating… but shouldn’t they be held to some sort of performance metric at this level?