The Gunners were not at their best on Tuesday night, losing 3-0 to Sporting CP’s youngsters.
However, Porter feels that his team can still push on, despite being 29th in the expanded group stage at present.
“It’s a very similar situation and feeling which means we’ve got a lot of learnings to help the players with,” he said post-game.
“It’s something we’e spoken a lot about, even before the tournament started. We had a lot of reflection and tried to prepare as best as possible. We understand momentum is very in these games and spoke about the importance of the first goal.
“If you look at Atalanta, we started very well and they scored from the first corner against us. Against PSG, we actually got the first goal and then we had something we could build on and saw the game out. Shakhtar was 70 percent possession and they had one shot on goal so the importance of the first goal, it was very similar today.
“I thought both teams today were a bit passive and tentative at the start. Sporting played a slightly different shape defensively and maybe a sign of respect to us, but it doesn’t really come down to much if we give away cheap goals and don’t have the foundation to perform from.
“The first goal was a technical error in terms of decision making to try to play back inside. On the second goal our plan was to try to trap them on the sides because they had an overload centrally. We trapped them where we want but we didn’t get the ball. If you don’t press the ball with intent, it doesn’t matter what you do with your tactics.
“At half-time we were very honest with each other as a group and came out and said we’ve got to give everything. Again, similar to Inter, we had a similar response, but did we have enough threat? We can help the players as much as possible, but there’s a reason players like Bukayo are ruthless, because of what he’s got in his locker. They’ve got to bring that to the party.”
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