UCL: Captain Martin Odegaard warns Arsenal to be wary of Porto’s ‘time-wasting’ tactics

Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard is wary of the match-up against Porto in the second leg of the Round of 16 tie at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday (Mar 12). Odegaard warned his teammates that akin to the first leg, Porto are likely to waste a lot of time to protect their slender 1-0 lead and ensure that the Gunners are frustrated.

It was last month that Arsenal suffered a shock defeat at the Estádio do Dragão when Galeno smashed a worldie from outside the box, deep into the stoppage time to leave Mikel Arteta and co. wounded.

High-flying Arsenal came into the match with confidence but the tactics from the Porto side disrupted their rhythm which had an eventual say in the proceedings.

"There are so many different things going on in each game. This game [against Porto] was one where the ball was out of play a lot and a lot of stop and start and restarts and all this. I think you saw that also against Brentford and I think we dealt with it in a brilliant way. I think that was a good practice," Odegaard told reporters ahead of the crucial match.

"We already showed in that game what we learned in Porto, hopefully, we can do that even better on Tuesday,"he said.

The Arsenal captain added that he wanted his side to play their own game which was the main thing.

"We had to deal with a lot of different situations, a lot of time-wasting. We had to control our emotions the whole game and I think we did that brilliantly."

War of words

The two teams have been sparring even before the ball was kicked in the first leg. In the build-up to the match, Porto goalkeeper Diogo Costa warned Arsenal saying his team would show the 'weak points' of the opponent.

"They are quite offensive but we will explore those weaker points in their game. Of course, they have weaknesses and of course I'm not going to say what they are," said Costa.

After the match, Porto coachSergio Conceicao further riled the Arsenal fanbase by stating: "Arsenal wanted to play but we wanted to win."

Quizzed on the eve of the second-leg match about Conceicao's statement, Arsenal boss Arteta said: "There is no interpretation, those are strong words."

(With inputs from agencies)