Beautiful Arsenal v Porto photo compilation

Every once in a while I’m lucky enough to be sent matchday photos from photographer and good friend Ryu Voelkel.

The latest installment is a terrific set from Emirates Stadium during Arsenal’s 5-0 win over FC Porto.

Bendtner

Wenger

Nasri

Walcott

Arshavin

Sagna

Bendtner 2

Sagna 2

Once you’re done falling in love with the photos, be sure to check out Voelkel’s website and Flickr page.

(Oh, and please, please, pretty please don’t steal them. They’re copyright.)

Thoughts?

Have your say on Voelkel’s terrific photos by leaving a comment.

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Comments

  1. As a Gooner, the night was special. Five nil to the Arsenal. Diaby & Song holding midfield steady. Arshavin and Nasri, weaving magic on the flanks. Clichy and Sagna, the full backs couldn’t be stopped from playing well upfront and aiding the midfield. The goal Arshavin created for Bendtner and the one Nasri scored were nothing short of “something out of nothing”. Bendtner added finishing touches to the hardwork of the midfielders. The penalty was a bonus. It’s time the opposition starts to fear The Arsenal.

  2. Maradona in his prime would have been proud to score a goal like Nasri’s last night. It was special.

  3. i was not lucky to see the game, however, this is wonderful, a goal scoring spree.

    Well Done!, The future is great.

  4. fabulous display by the gunners
    Bendtner is a physical presence up front which we just didn’t have with arshavin. On the other hand I would not want any other player running at defenses from the left like arshavin does. Nasri (my fav player even before this game) played brilliantly. He really stepped up in absence of cesc. Sol did not have the greatest game but…. he’s old and can’t really keep up with these quick forwards, however I would take him over silvestre any day. Awesome game by everyone but i just felt that denilson wasent even on the pitch, he doesent make a big impact in my opinion. Great pics by the way Andy

  5. And as the Arsenal guns finally fall silent Porto are left to count their dead…

    So where’s our hero, Zero, who came on here after the first leg crowing about their fabulous victory and outlining just why Porto were the better team man for man? Are you man for man enough to come back on here and give us your views now, my man? Or are you in bed crying? Let’s be having you.

    Twas a very very good all round performance – I couldn’t fault a single player. I wouldn’t describe St. Nick’s first goal as a tap-in neither. He had to pounce on that and put his body on the line. Sammy Nasri – wot a diamond. Just like when he first came in. That goal was George Best at his finest. But for me – Andre Arshavin was f**king dynamite! he had Porto by the balls.

    Now get this – we’re through to the quarter finals again. All that lovely loot. Millions. And achieved without Van Persie, Gallas & Fabregas. 3 absolute certain starters when fit. Tis incredible, boys.

    Arsene Wenger you are a wery Wonderful man. Arsenal. you have done us proud.

  6. Sorry, Andrew. Terribly rude of me. Nice ‘smudges’. Has anyone got a pic of The Great Man leaping into the air when…think it was after Nasri’s goal. ?

    Was there an official MOM by the by? Twas Arshavin for me. God I love that player. He looked well cheesed off when Arsene subbed him.

  7. Lets build up on this success whilst taking up Tot’.. somethin wihin me tells me after tonite, we migte b d only english team remaining in d CL…. dunno, but something just tells me so..:):):)
    congrats on the victory, a strong message is being sent but i hope oda clubs dont regard it… it suits us like that…

  8. Posters here said they wouldnt be upet if we went out so we play less games but i think its the opposite we can build a momentum with our recent wins and keep it going till the end of the season, hopefully

  9. Not to take anything away from a fantastic performance by the Gunners, but was anyone else surprised at how poorly Porto played?

  10. great pics andy,what a wonderful day to be a gooner. yeah i remember hero the zero, doubt he,ll be back cause he KNOWS his boys took one hell of a beating. LOL……………….

  11. First thing is first. Great win. I mean I am excited to state for the first time in a couple months I was happy with the way Arsenal played against Porto. Keep it up Gunners…and PL victory and a champs trophy may be ours.

    Samir Nasri reminds me all too much of a young Zinedine Zidane….straight down to their heritage.
    Last game he played well dropping into midfield for Cesc, and last night showed this is his natural role.

    When the Boss was asked about Nasri in the midfield:
    “If I ask him, he will want to play there, don’t worry. So I don’t ask him. He can play there, but when Fabregas comes back, [Nasri] will play wide.”

    Now why wouldn’t he consider Nasri pairing with Cesc? With the likes of Arshavin Left and Walcott/Rosicky/Eboue Right….

    Nasri needs to play in a Central Attacking position because he was born to play this position, and with all the potential “wide” players we have, there are already too many options.

    Your thoughts Gentlemen?

  12. Eboue was terrific. I find it quite astonishing that players, who I have previously slagged off such as Song, Diaby and Eboue, have seemingly turned their games around and are playing brilliantly. If it shows anything it’s that Arsene really does Know. Perhaps there was no ‘turning round’ and that talent was always there? Arsene could see it and I could not. I would have willingly shot Diaby at the end of last season – now I look forward to seeing him on the pitch. He was excellent again last night. Eboue, as you say h.a., fantastic effort. Song of course is now our midfield rock and we’ll be having to fend off the offers for him before too long. Even Almunia seems to be getting it together. This is why we mustn’t get too heavy on Denilson. If the Prof has faith in him – so must we. At least with Denny we do know he’s talented. Let the Prof bring his talent to fruition.

  13. @nevergoonergiveup – everytime we give a team a hiding someone says ‘they played poorly’. We MADE Porto look bad because we outplayed them everywhichwaybutloose.

  14. Good game by Arsenal but how poor were Porto.Their defending was awful,Arsenal could have scored a few more.The Nasri goal summed them up,he walked past three defenders without one of them putting in a serious challenge.Some lovely moves by the gunners,I enjoy the one touch passing but surprised a team as poor as Porto got out of their group.

  15. Oh, hey…yeah…you’re right. Now I think of it Arsenal weren’t very good at all. Only 5 goals. That’s rubbish. Considering the opposition weren’t even there hardly and didn’t even once try to stop us scoring. Helped us even. Bendtner is useless and should have had 10. No 20. My pub team could have beat Porto. When we’re drunk. And with both legs tied together. Lucky lucky Arsenal to beat a team in the quarter finals of the Champions league 6-2 on aggregate.

  16. @ arry…

    Nasri has the form right now but keep in mind the center is Diaby’s natural position as well and Nasri delivers much better on the wing than Diaby. Besides Wenger likes to develop central players by putting them on the wings. The competition for the third central role next to Cesc and Song is fierce. That’s a good thing. The petite prince will have to stay patient his time will come.

  17. The boys are clearly doing it for Aaron Ramsey, who’d have filled in SuperCesc’s boots. A wonderful result at a time that the boys and the fans need a morale pick-up.

  18. thought we deserved that win yeserday. It was a great result….However, there were still concerns about some of our play. We look great when we are bombing forward, but the gaping holes that we leave behind in midfield when we lose the ball will come back to haunt us when we play the big boys. You would think with just a little discipline from one our the holding midfielders to sit back in front of the back four and plug the holes could take us to glory. I would hope Wenger sees this and addresses it because everytime we lose the ball the opposition players have acres of space in midfield to trouble us. We play like we did yesterday against a Barca or Real side and the score could look like a cricket score. We need to play ugly sometimes when we are on top and not give a sniff to the opposition. Any thoughts…..

  19. Last night – fantastic! Unexpected and most welcome.

    However, Hull is a massive match on Saturday. Chelsea and United will drop points soon and we need to win every league game to take advantage and keep the momentum going.

    Focus lads, focus.

  20. I don’t think “Hey Nonny Mouse” (what kind of name is that anyway?) knows his football. Porto are a strong side, in any language. They have a very technical game and if he watched that game last night, he would have realized it. Arsenal’s goals came from sheer resilience and applied pressure. How can he say Nasri’s goal was not all that? Bendtner, who has been suffering from confidence issues, scored his first hat-trick of his career!! Lets not forget Arshavin’s counter-attack before he fed Eboue to score. Only a moronic retard would claim that Arsenal didn’t play their hearts out in that game. What other game/team is he comparing last night’s game to? The idiot!!!

  21. A win worth remembering, but I am still not convince and either should your guys be taken away by the victory as we haven’t beaten the top four team still in this tournament, inter/chelsea, manu, real and barc.

  22. manu and chelsea have be unanswer as we lost by huge margins, so we should enjoy the victory while it’s still young and rememba just around the corner d-day is coming

  23. hey Nonny mouse -does not mean what he is saying he just be sarcastic, he or she as been one of the long serving members on board this blog.

  24. @Charles and Adrian- Nonny Mouse is being sarcastic. Read his previous posts. I think Mr. Wenger should have received the MoM because he brings out whatever hidden talent people has. We are wrong to doubt any move he makes. Getting a striker in january window could have oversaturated our firepower. Once RvP returns we will have Bendtner,RvP,Arshavin who are 3 must-starts + eduardo,theo, chamakh. OVERKILL. Advanced central midfield role(if all 3 are fit)- Cesc,nasri & ramsey. Again oversaturation. So the likes of nasri and rosicky must play flank because the pecking order is extremely competitive. Nasri’s goal was pure class but Cesc can produce more assists and more goals week-in week-out. We have got too much talent coming through and I don’t think we should sign Chamakh. We have already got too much on our plate to give everyone premiere league action if people stop having injuries next season. What I loved more than anything in last night’s match was the pace of the 4th goal. Did anyone see the speed of the sprints arshavin and eboue made? Walcott must have been sitting there on the bench thinking “Sh1t! If everyone starts running like this, it will be tough for me to get a starting slot!” Most important thing this pundits dont get is Arsenal can break down any defense with their slick passing apart from one-two hardcore teams with immense CBs. But now with Bendtner as CF and crosses being played in from wide by sagna,clichy,rosicky,nasri,eboue, theo- we are pretty much unstoppable if people stop having persistent injuries.

  25. Great photo of AW! The whole team was fantastic but please lets go easy on Denilson – he is also getting back from injury and is still a youngster, if we are letting Theo and Nasri have time to settle back we must allow the wee Brazilian some leeway too!
    Go Forward you beauties and ta for the great blog!

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  27. I found myself laughing, not smiling but actually laughing at the missed chance by Sagna. He is such a wonderful lad, missing the chance at 4-0, then giving that huge smile of happiness – of course at the result of the match and not the missed chance.

    What is undeniable now is that we need our first trophy and this season. This will keep the crucial players at Arsenal and will result in Arsenal dominating English, and eventually European, football for many years. My estimate would be five years. Bravo the Arsenal.

  28. I haven’t been able to view the photos cause of our poor Internet Network. Africa’s problems do not leave the Pearl of Africa where I am coming from of course.
    I would love to view the photo’s later when it stablises.

    Till then, have a good night.

  29. Thanx Andy for the pics, way cool and what a time to be an arsenal fan!

    @ Nonny Mouse and H.a. yeah Eboue was terrific. Notice how he sprinted like a steam engine ahead of Arshavin and the porto dude and was in place for Arsha’s perfect pass and still rounded the goalie and placed it before the leg of an on rushing porto defender!! then calling everyone to come celebrate, that was the moment that captured the team spirit we are currently enjoying. Will watch Nasri’s goal for years to come for sure. Thanks Bendtner, he deserved the man of the match for sure

    Porto did not play poorly, they were just shell shocked by a complete Arsenal performance and had no answer! Go Gunners, let’s blow away Hull on the weekend!!

  30. To everyone else – Hey Nonny Mouse was being sarcastic. Seems like he tricked a couple of you, sneaky git.

    @ vinny – Looks like we won’t get to see what the score would have been against Madrid because they’re out! I do see what you’re saying about noone sitting back at times but I don’t think it’s quite right – when Song bombs forward you will usually notice Diaby recognising it and slotting into the deeper position. He’s still improving his awareness in that respect but one of the points I made in the match report was that he looks more and more reliable and disciplined in that second midfield position, as opposed to the attacking role. That is a vital improvement in his game and a great asset to our team.

  31. Good morrow, Gentles, all. Yea, I confess, twas indeed sarcasm, the lowest form of wit, but I could not help it, being much vexed by the comments of certain buffoons.
    @ Vinny – naughty boy. Nasri did not ‘walk past three defenders’ I think you’ll find if you watch it again (with bifocals in place) that he skillfully weaved through their tackles at some speed and with no mean control of the ballon.

    Leaving that though – here’s a little something that I hadn’t thought about, that I just gleaned from football365:

    ‘Arsenal should hope – and pray – that Tottenham beat Fulham in their FA Cup quarter-final replay next week. Because if Spurs progress to the semi-finals then the North London derby currently scheduled for April 10 will have to be postponed – and that will be very much to Arsenal’s advantage. Otherwise, the Gunners will have to travel to White Hart Lane for a 12.45pm Saturday kick-off just two or three days after the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final.’

    Come on you, Spuds anyone?

  32. the pictures really capture the beauty of those moments! mad props to ur photographer friend! i was lucky enough to attend the game! if only arsenal can continue playing for the rest of the season the way they played that night!

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