We lost for the seventh time this season last night, with a pretty abject display against Porto. Highlights here.

Not very much to cheer about, I’m pretty glad I’m not one of the fans who travelled all the way to Portugal for this one. We started alright but the passing was decidedly poor, and apart from a bit of magic form Ramsey we looked crap. Eboue started and was indifferent, but then again so was just about every other player.

The thing that worries me about last night is that we actually had a reasonable team out, but performed awfully. The defence wasn’t first choice, but Silvestre, Djourou, Gallas, Eboue is probably one of our stronger choices, and up front we had Bendtner and Vela who have both shown great potential, while in the middle Ramsey, Diaby, Denilson and Song also all have potential. But the team didn’t gel and players didn’t put the defensive effort in. Take Gallas’ sliced clearance in the second half, or Diaby’s bad defence when we conceded.

A mere point from this game could have put us first. It doesn’t make a huge amount of difference in terms of who we draw next round, they will all be hard games, but you would have thought we could have put a bit more effort in. Hopefully we will see some first teamers back and a good performance against Middlesbrough on Saturday away.