After Arsene Wenger's defiant speech in the press room on Monday, his team failed to prove him right and lost 3-1 to Bayern Munich in the Emirates. Meanwhile in Portugal, Porto prevented Malaga from scoring a pivotal away goal and will go to Spain with a 1-0 lead.
Arsenal were very slow in the first half and found themselves behind after just seven minutes. Bayern broke down the wing and Thomas Muller found a pull back which was slightly mis-hit. This proved to be an advantage as none of the defenders could get to it and Toni Kroos smashed the ball off the ground and past Wojiech Szczesny from the edge of the box.
Despite being slow, Arsenal didn't look over-awed prior to the goal but it broke their spirit. Bayern smelt blood and poor defending allowed the Germans to grab a second away goal just after twenty minutes. Arsenal decided to mark zonally from a corner which allowed Daniel Van Buyten a free header at the near post. Szczesny managed to prevent it from going in but his block barely moved two yards and Muller was on hand to poke the ball home.
Arsenal were much improved in the second half and Arsenal had pulled a goal back ten minutes after the restart. Another corner proved to be the downfall as Manuel Neuer half came and then stopped dead when he knew he couldn't get to it. This allowed Lukas Podolski to head home from the far post into the empty net, scoring against his former employers and Bayern's first concession of 2013.
From that, Arsenal had the momentum and Jack Wilshere looked to be running the creative show in midfield. Wenger also responded by bringing off Podolski and Aaron Ramsey who both had yellow cards for Tomas Rosicky and Olivier Giroud, forcing Theo Walcott on to the wing. This almost paid instant dividends as Rosicky found a delightful lofted ball out wide to Walcott who then pulled it back for Giroud to smash straight at Neuer, anywhere else and he would have scored.
But Arsenal would be made to rue that guilt edged opportunity as Munich restored their two goal lead 13-minutes from the end. Substitute Arjen Robben fed the overlapping Philipp Lahm who played the ball across and a mixture of Bacary Sagna and Mario Mandzukic sent the ball into the air before dipping into the net. With a two goal advantage and three away goals, it's not impossible for Arsenal to turn this tie around but rather improbable. One positive is that Bastian Schweinsteiger will be suspended for the second leg in the Allianz Arena.
The other tie will be much more open in Spain between Malaga and Porto. It may be a case of missed opportunity for Porto as they dominated in front of their supporters but only have one goal to show for it. That goal came 11-minutes into the second half when Sandro played Joao Moutinho in with a great through ball for the striker to stab home.
Malaga may be disappointed with their underwhelming performance in this first leg but should be rather confident of now winning this match in their own back yard despite failing to score an away goal.
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