Last year when Arsenal came to the Camp Nou in the Champions League quarter finals they got hammered, they were taken apart by a great Barcelona performance. This time was different, the stats show that Barcelona outclasses the London team, and that was not the reality.
The pain may be greater because with 30 minutes left to play in the tie Arsenal held a 3-2 aggregate lead when disaster struck. Robin van Persie was sent off for the softest red card I think I’ve ever seen. He played the ball through after the whistle had gone and was got his second booking for the game.
Arsenal missed van Persie last weekend in the rather uneventful 0-0 draw with Sunderland at the weekend and against Barcelona, down such an important player I think it’s fair to say this really did change the game.
The brutal truth is Arsenal did not pose much of a threat, but none the less they were in this game until the last 30 minutes. It’s been a tough 10 days for Wenger’s team, loosing to Birmingham in the Carling Cup, failing to take what most people saw as a must win game against Sunderland and now being knocked out the champions league.
The big games keep coming, as next weekend is the FA Cup quarter final against Manchester United.
Three weeks ago the first leg of this game produced a fantastic game of football. Tonight was different, Barcelona came out to do a job and clearly showed Arsenal more respect and played a tactically a very different game. They played with control and dominated possession; at the Emirates they played with more flair, played further forward and gave Arsenal space to work in.
Tonight they took that space away, denied the visitors the ball and showed why they are week-in, week-out the best team in the world. Barcelona knew what they had to do and executed perfectly. They were good when they needed to be, controlled the rest of the time and the 3-1 score line is reflective of the level they played at.
There were early defeats in the group stage that mean Arsenal ended up facing one of the group winners. This is a good Arsenal team and they play some very attractive football. They still have a chance in the Premier League and the FA cup and there are moments where they look like a different team (going from 4-0 up to 4-4 with Newcastle a few weeks ago), but when they play well they can beat anyone.
The FA Cup game at United is live on Saturday, it’s has the makings of a great game of football. Then of course next Tuesday is the opening game of the Sounders season.
2 Comments
Arsenal were outplayed this afternoon, Barce had over 70% of the possession and won comfortably in the end. I did not hink arsenal were nearly as good as they were at home.
Wanna to thank you for interesting posts dude. Keep your blog up to date it’s a great think to read