5 Things We Learned From The Barca Game

This article was written by a young man named Lewis Wright who is an Arsenal fan and aspiring sports journalist, who's going to be writing a weekly piece for them at Vital Arsenal.

5 Things We Learned From The Barcelona Match:

Confidence isn`t Everything

Nicklas Bendtner certainly talks a good game. He has claimed that he will be 'amongst the best strikers in the world` within 5 years. He`s also stated on a number of occasions that he 'deserves to start every game.`

On a recent self confidence test he even outscored Thierry Henry, Nicolas Anelka and David Trezeguet. The test showed that 'When Bendtner misses a chance, he is always genuinely convinced that it wasn`t his fault.` It`s difficult to see who the Dane could blame for missing last night`s sitter.

He has pace, height, an excellent first touch and on occasion, an unnerving ability to finish, but if Bendtner wants to make it to the top work needs to be done on his mind not his game. His hat trick against Leyton Orient was appreciated, and superbly taken, but too many times, when he is given the chance to make a real difference, under real pressure, his usually pristine technique lets him down.

Unless he learns to accept that mistakes happen, and aren`t other people`s fault, it`s hard to see him ever making the Arsenal striker`s shirt his own.

The future of Arsenal is English

For all the pre match talk about Fabregas being back in the team, and Song being absent, the midfield held its own. Diaby was strong in the tackle and as effective in distribution as anyone else.

The moment Arsenal did create, such as the corner that led to the goal, came about when Nasri ran at the Barcelona defence with pace. Walcott would have provided an outlet; a straight route into Barcelona territory. His directness offers the team an alternative and a way of moving the ball at a speed no defender in world football can deal with.

If Guardiola has a B team full of Jack Wilsheres, as suggested, one wonders why the Barcelona B side sit 9 points off the play offs in the Segunda Division, having lost 8 times already. Thiago and Dos Santos may well be quality players, but they`re no Wilshere. At just 19 the midfielder ran the first game at The Emirates, outshining both Xavi and Iniesta. At The Nou Camp his game changed to be more defensive, but he was no less effective for it. He showed his tenacity, passion and willingness to run himself into the ground for the team.

Surely it`s a matter of when, not if Wilshere becomes club captain.

Sometimes Wenger can be adaptable

Much was made of the difference in possession, the difference in passes made, but for all their ball retention it took a Fabregas howler to allow Barcelona to score. Until that point, and indeed, until the red card, Barcelona probed but with no real incisiveness.

Arsenal looked solid and were able to adapt their game to accept there would be fewer chances early on, but to hold on for more quality ones later in the game.

Each time Arsenal have faced Barcelona in the last 2 seasons they have finished the game strongly, scoring goals late on in two of them. For all the fanfare about passing 5 yards sideways over and over, Arsenal are a much fitter and stronger side than Barcelona, and 11 vs 11, history shows they could have expected a much greater chance of holding on to the game and coming back later on. Would Van Persie have accepted the gift that Bendtner spurned? The stats would say yes.

The Referee Choked

Much of the fuss about Van Persie`s dismissal centres around whether he heard the whistle or not. It`s irrelevant. One second passed between the whistle and the shot. One second to react and counter an instinct to score.

The bitter irony is that the very reason that RVP couldn`t hear a whistle is the very same reason the decision was made; crowd noise.


Barcelona is not 'more than club,` it`s just another club

Guardiola crowed about a reserve side packed full of young world beaters. Yet at the last European U21 Championship, England beat Spain on route to the final.

The club`s Director of football Raul Sanllehi claimed he was 'shocked` by the transfer spending in England over the winter saying about Torres` move to Chelsea that 'Barcelona would not make that signing. We would not even consider it.` Barcelona had to borrow £125 million just to pay the team`s wages earlier last year, in the main due to the fact that in the last year only Real Madrid and Manchester City spent more than their 113 million Euros outlay. The year before it was 90 million, with the club spending 66 million Euros on Zlatan Ibrahimovich. He made 29 appearances for the Catalans before leaving to head back to Milan, on loan, for free.

The club claimed Arsenal were 'morally wrong` for using the Spanish League as a 'fishing pond`, and that clubs should choose local talent. Messi was 12 when he moved 6,000 miles to Barcelona, and in the fabled B team there are 'local` products of the youth academy from countries including Brazil, Canada, England and The Netherlands.

Xavi gave an interview to The Guardian where he professed to be a 'football romantic,` and that 'Some youth academies worry about winning, we worry about education.` That education saw Abidal and Valdes see fit to grab RVP round his throat. That education regularly see its players fall to the ground after little to minimal contact and then wave imaginary cards when a foul is given.

Next season the 'more than a club` will be sponsored by the Qatar Foundation, from a country where homosexuality is illegal, dissident bloggers are arrested and Amnesty International have released several warnings about human rights violations.

They may have lost last night, but Arsenal have no reason to believe that Barcelona are superior in anything other than results.

UEFA: Corrupt and stinking bastards

The fact that UEFA have charged Arsene Wenger and Samir Nasri following yesterday's truly pathetic refereeing performance from Massimo Busacca makes it look like someone is deflect attention away from a rather corrupt and stinking organisation. Before I start on this rant, I am not saying Arsenal deserved to win, Barcelona were dominating the game before the sending off, however it is undeniable that Arsenal restricted Barcelona to very few clear cut chances before going down to ten men. The fact is that the sending off massively reduced our chances of going through yesterday and massively impacted upon the game's outcome.

The fact that UEFA are charging Nasri and Wenger is a disgrace. The fact that several Barcelona players grabbed our players by the throats in plain view of the refereeyesterday has been completely and utterly ignored by UEFA and the match officials. The fact that the referee dished out several extremely soft yellow cards to our players in the first half was also obvious, at the same time he let Barcelona off with some extremely firm tackles, far firmer than anything that our players had been carded for. He failed to bookMessi for a clear dive, he allowed the routine feigning of injury to carry on for the entire game.

Busacca then sent off RVP for the most laughable of reasons, Jack as since spoken of how he couldn't even hear the whistle, RVP certainly didn't and the ref seemed remarkably keen to send him off. Arsene has quite rightly spoken out on this, frankly it was 'embarrassing', the hapless Busacca should be ashamed of himself. UnfortunatelyBusacca seemed to enjoy his role in Barca's triumph, he enjoyed laughs and jokes with the Barca players as he shared their water in the first half, not something he afforded to the Arsenal players. Busacca hadn't finished there though, he still had time to give Barcaa dodgy penalty as the notorious diver Pedro pirouetted in the box after the mildest of gusts.

We Have summed it all up more eloquently than I can, it is clear that irrelevant of our performance or the so called statistics the red card massively changed the game, Goodplaya has also summed neatly just how incompetent the decision to send RVPoff was. We had actually defended well until the red card, other than Cesc's stupid back heel that led to the first goal. We would have had a chance with eleven men on the field, we almost managed to snatch something with only ten men left, our chances would have been undeniably greater with the full compliment left.

The reason I am so incensed by this is that UEFA seem to be deliberately perpetuating this bias, whether it is a case of overt corruption or more of a subconscious one, I won't speculate, but the fact that it is only Arsenal facing charges stinks when several Barcelona players had our players quite literally by the throats. UEFA are part of this broader axis of evil that includes FIFA and the FA who seem intent of keeping football as corrupt and biased as possible, they don't want fairness, they don't want technology, they want to stifle all dissent to keep their corrupt little coven going. It is undeniable that keeping Barca in the competition makes far more money for UEFA, you just wonder how deliberate the lubrication of their passage has been?

The dark artists of Catalonia

Well, that was brilliant wasn't it? A match winning performance if ever I saw one. Yes,Barcelona must be delighted at the performance of the Swiss official Massimo Busaca last night. You can come here and tell me, till you're blue in the face if you like, that Barcelona were the better team- they were, that they dominated possession- they did and that they created enough chances to win the game- likewise. But what you have to concede in return is that Bussaca's red card for Arsenal came at a time when Arsenal had just begun to gain a foothold in last night's match. It also came at a time when, for all Barca's possession, Arsenal were leading the tie. You will also have to concede that it was a staggeringly harsh punishment.

In fact, issuing a second yellow card of the evening and then sending a centre forward off for the crime of having a shot on goal one second after you've blown your whistle in a stadium full of 95,000 noisy catalans is not just harsh, it's ridiculous. The insult to injury comes when you consider that, had Busacca done his job properly in the first place, Robin wouldn't have been on a yellow card to begin with. What? Allow me to enlighten you. Late in the first half the fracas that followed a pretty hefty tackle on Jack Wilshere, certainly Eric Abidal had Robin van Persie around the throat whilst another Barca suspect (Alves? Busquets?) did the same to Samir Nasri. And what was the referees response to this/ Well, he and his two linesman decide to do a Horatio Nelson and pretend that they saw the square root of nada. Just minutes later, understandably fired up the by the continual refusal to do anything about Barcelona's skullduggery, van Persie raises his hands to Dani Alves- though barely enough to trigger the reaction that followed and finds his way into the book.

In truth, the referee had set his stall out early as, it has to be said, had the Barca team. Barca played the way that they apparently always play, excellent in possession, speed of thought and movement making them extremely difficult to cope with. The fact that they greeted almost every tackle by collapsing to the floor make them difficult to tackle, the fact that the referee seemed more than happy to allow them to leave their feet in made it all the more difficult to keep the ball. Especially in an Arsenal side clearly already struggling.

On reflection, the story of Arsenal's night was a comedy of errors, but with all the comedy taken out. We got the psychological boost of seeing van Persie and Fabregas restored to the starting lineup, only to witness the reality of their states of "fitness", we got Diaby and Rosicky in the midfield- when really all these two can be good for is the bench. And not the bench at a club with Champions League aspirations. We gotWojciech Szczesny dislocating his finger in gathering an Alves free kick- just one more reason to hate one of the biggest cheats I've ever seen on a football pitch. And yes, I include Eboue in that assessment. Which, of course, saw the return of Manuel Almunia to the first team, and didn't he play well? We got, deep into the injury time that resulted from Szczesny's injury, Cesc's first contribution to the match, the mother of all brain farts and a backheel- a backheel!- on the edge of our penalty area. Iniesta pounced, teed up Messi, who flicked the ball over Almunia and smacked it home on the volley.

Barca were worth their goal lead, I think, though aside from the Maxwell shot that smacked off the post, it was tough to think of many clear sights of our goal- our centre backs working hard to put out any number of fires. You have to say though, that not had only had we not had a shot in anger, we hadn't even threatened one.

The second half began in a much more positive vein, I thought. And in that positive vein, Samir Nasri dribbled down our left taking on three Barca players. He won a corner. He took the corner. Diaby jumped, the ball ended up in the Barca net- off Busquets! Busquets, the only man who migbht have a bigger claim to being a cheat than Alves, the Karma Police had arrived! Just as during last season's tie though, our joy was limited to about three minutes worth. Unlike last season when it was the magic of Messi pissing all over our dreams, we have a whistle happy cheat from Switzerland to thank.
And once van Persie was gone, I think it was simply a case of delaying the inevitable. We didn't delay Barca too long. I can sit here and rage about the way they marry their brilliant football with the dark arts. But sometimes you have to just give credit to that brilliant football and that was never more evident than in Xavi's heartbreaking goal with just under a quarter of the match left. As in 2006, the turnaround was completed quickly, with Messi blasting the ball into the corner from the penalty spot after a Koscielny foul on Pedro.

They could have had more, Villa was denied by Almunia. When Afellay replaced him, the substitute had two chances to get four on the board again but passed them up. Against all the odds, we came so, so close to securing a memorable passage through to the quarter finals when the tireless and excpetional Jack Wilshere won the ball, drove forward and fed Bendtner on the edge of the Barcelona box- Bendtner had replaced Fabregas by then. He was one on one with the keeper, could he hold his nerve and score? You all know the answer now, this legend in his own lunchtime couldn't even control the ball well enough to get his shot away- Javier Mascherano making a cracking recovery tackle he should never have been allowed to. To add to the chance Bendtner messed up late in the first tie, this one was gone and with it so were we.

I don't have any problem with saying the better team won, but I'm not sure how Graeme Souness can sit on a sofa and say that playing for 40 minutes with a man less than the best passing side in the world wouldn't have affected the result. Once we lost our centre forward and settled into a 4-5 bank, we were opened up time and time again. Say what you like about Barca, but they didn't manage this with such ease whilst it was 11 v 11. Why? Because it's easy to go forward against a team with no centre forward. Obviously, we were looking to hold Barca and hit them on the break towards the end, the dismissal of van Persie robbed us of that opportunity, More to the point, what would the Dutchman have made of that late chance? He would have got his shot away at least, Massimo Bussaca knows that much. Barca had 40 of 180 minutes against 10 men and for all their, well documented, superiority they beat us by one single, solitary goal. Talking of solitary goals, we now know the true cost of Eduardo's winner against us late last year. That's one to ponder on, isn't it? Effectively knocked out by our former striker.

I think we now have confirmation, as if we didn't know it already, that this Arsenal squad- although they still have a good chance of winning the league- are not going to be good enough against the very best the continent has to offer. There are too many passengers in the squad, too many players that you just can't rely on. I think 1-11 we're as good as anyone, except the dark artists of Catalonia, but when you start having to throw in the likes of Diaby, Bendtner, Rosicky, Almunia (though no blame to him for last night- he was brilliant), you are going to struggle. Then you look at players like Eboue and Denilson, what is the point of them, really? I think the time has come for Arsène to bite the bullet and go and get us the kind of striker that would have put away that chance last night, we know now that having one of them just isn't enough.

Just as I began this piece, news came in that both Samir Nasri and Arsène Wengerhave been charged byUEFA as a result of comments made to Bussaca last night. Great, he screws up and we cop it twice over. Merci beaucoup, Platini.

UEFA move quickly to charge Arsenal's Wenger and Nasri

UEFA have charged Arsenalboss Arsene Wenger and midfielder Samir Nasri with improper conduct over comments made to the referee in Tuesday's Champions League defeat toBarcelona.

The Swiss official sent offRobin van Persie for a second yellow card for shooting at goal just one second after he had blown the whistle for offside - a decision the Arsenalstriker described as a 'joke'.

At the final whistle, Wenger confronted Busacca and the conversation reportedly continued down the tunnel.

The Gunners boss claimed in his post-match press conference that UEFA officials were 'shocked' by Busacca's decision to dismiss Van Persie, but European football's governing body will wait before pursuing any case against Wenger.

Pep takes a pop at Wilshere

PEP TALK ... Guardiola taunted Arsenal by criticising Gunners golden boy Jack Wilshere

PEP GUARDIOLA last night taunted Arsenal over Jack Wilshere, claiming: I've got loads of players like him — in the reserves!

The Barca chief was asked what he thought of the England midfielder, who had a stormer as Arsenal won the first leg at The Emirates 2-1.

Guardiola declared: "Wilshere is a top player, and has been a big surprise. I didn't know him at the start of the season. In the first game he had a really good performance.

"He can be a great player for Arsenal and England, but we have many types of player like him in our second team!"

Arsenal chief Arsene Wenger was bemused when he heard of Guardiola's comments. Wenger said: "I play Jack Wilshere because he's good enough to play and deserves his place.

"I'm long enough in the job to know when a player deserves to play."

Arsenal's stars have been accused of being mentally fragile. They have not won a trophy since 2005 and lost the Carling Cup final to Birmingham nine days ago.

But Guardiola said: "I hear about the fragility of the mind of the Arsenal players, but I don't agree.

"They lack something, but the most important thing is Arsenal are always at the top — they don't disappear

Wenger to make decision 75 minutes before Kick-Off!

The Guardian are reporting that the big decision for Arsene Wenger, on whether or not to let the Arsenal striker Robin van Persie play at the Camp Nou this evening, will be made at the last possible minute, which is 75 minutes before the kick-off.

Van Persie was thought to be out for four to six weeks after his injury during the Carling Cup Final against Birmingham City, but the striker surprisingly took part in training yesterday and Arsène Wenger chartered a private jet to fly the player out to Barcelona for their Champions League 2nd leg tie.

Arsenal have to name an 18-man squad for the game and Arsène Wenger will leave the decision to the last possible moment in the hopes that the in-form Dutch forward can take part in the game.

Van Persie has been in sensational form recently after recovering from injury in the first half of the season. He has scored 12 times in 9 games including a goal in the first leg against Barcelona at the Emirates stadium.

Barcelona will be without central defensive pairing Puyol and Pique, due to, respectively, an injury and a ban, which means the Spanish side will have to set up a make-shift defence. The prospect of facing a red hot Van Persie is something Pep Guardiola will not look forward to.

Arsène Wenger needs to submit his 18-man squad 75 minutes before kick-off which is when he will have to decide whether or not to include Van Persie. Arsenal have a 2-1 lead over Barcelona but will be expected to chase more goals as they are doubtful about their ability to keep a clean sheet against the likes of Messi and Villa.

Gunners ace prepared to wait for deal

Arsenal left-back Gael Clichy is relaxed over his own future and believes the Gunners win over Chelsea in December was a turning point.

Clichy's deal at the Emirates comes to an end in the summer of 2012, but the Frenchman insists he is prepared to wait until the current campaign has come to a close before he reopens contract negotiations at the Emirates.
"Will I prolong my contract? I don't know and I don't think about it," Clichy told L'Equipe.
"The season is still long. I will have time to think about it in the summer."
The Gunners are battling for honours on three fronts following their Carling Cup final defeat and face European giants Barcelona at the Nou Camp on Tuesday, with Arsenal holding a 2-1 lead thanks to victory at the Emirates in the first-leg.
Clichy remains in confident mood ahead of the trip to Barcelona and the defender believes Arsenal's 3-1 victory over Chelsea on December 27 was a turning point in their season.
"I have watched the first leg against Barcelona again three or four times. I am rarely impressed by a team but this time Barcelona got 60 per cent possession on our pitch," he continued.
"It is huge. We suffered but we could resist. Something happened against Chelsea. Since that match we are not the same team anymore.
"Everyone makes an effort, so it is a little easier on defenders. In the past, sometimes two or three players could give up. At such a level, it is not possible."
The Gunners star is adamant his side can not only progress to the next round, but also beat the Spanish giants on their own turf.
He added: "What will happen at Camp Nou? We will qualify and I will score! It would be nice. We will give our very best. Arsene Wenger has often told us there is no better team than ours

Arsenal vs Barca video

GOOOOOOOOOO GUNNNNER!!!

Cesc Fabregas ready to lead Arsenal in the Nou Camp but decision over striker Robin van Persie will be left until the last minute

Cesc Fabregas is set to lead Arsenal in Tuesday night’sChampions League showdown against Barcelona but Arsene Wenger will wait until the last minute before deciding whether to gamble on the fitness of Robin van Persie.

The Arsenal manager suggested on Monday night in his final media briefing before the quarter-final second leg that the best the Dutchman could hope for was a place among the seven substitutes.

Wenger is reluctant to throw the notoriously fragile Van Persie into the fray against the three-times European Cup winners only nine days after he sustained a knee ligament injury that was initially estimated to keep him out for up to six weeks.

But after signalling his intent to pitch Fabregas into the starting XI following a two-week lay-off with a hamstring strain, Wenger is seriously considering doing the same with van Persie.

“He’s here as a player who will have a test,” said Wenger. “I personally would like him to play but he has to be 100 per cent. He’s made quick progress in the last few days. When I spoke [on Monday morning] it was unlikely he would travel. But he was keen to have a go.

“I’m very bad at mind games. It’s no mind game. We will see [on Tuesday] when the medical staff check with him.

“There are two kinds of problem. Fabregas was muscular, Van Persie is a ligament. With muscle problems there are more risks. With Van Persie it’s just a case of if he feels fit to play or not. There’s no chance of a recurrence.”

Even if Van Persie suffers no ill effects from Monday's session in the build-up to Tuesday night’s game, such a swift comeback would represent a risk on the part of the Arsenal manager, who told the English media on Monday morning that the 27-year-old was out injured only hours before he joined his team-mates in the 19-man squad that boarded a charter flight to Spain.

It was widely assumed to be a move designed to upset Barcelona’s planning and provide a boost to Arsenal’s squad following a testing week but Van Persie emerged unscathed from a private training session on Monday with fitness coach Tony Holbert and has told Wenger that he feels ready to play.

If the Dutchman does make a miracle recovery, he will be joined by Fabregas, who returned to training at the end of last week and is confident he will last 90 minutes against his former club. The Spaniard has not played since limping out of Arsenal’s 1-0 Premier League win over Stoke City a fortnight ago with a hamstring injury.

“My fitness is good - for the last six days I haven’t felt anything,” Fabregas said on Monday. “It was a very small thing I had. The problem is muscular. In the last few weeks I suffered a little because I didn’t know if I would be able to play.”

Arsenal will take a slender 2-1 lead into Tuesday night's clash following their stirring fightback at the Emirates Stadium.

Despite the personal significance of the occasion for Fabregas, who will play his first competitive game at the Nou Camp, the Gunners skipper insists victory is the only thing on his mind.

“I am not here to shut up comments or to beat anyone specifically or whatever. I am just here to win for Arsenal Football Club,” he said.

“For all my connections with Barca, tonight is all about Arsenal. All I will be concentrating on is how to help Arsenal through to the quarter-finals. It is something that I want as badly as any Arsenal fan.

“It is about us proving that we have what it takes to beat the best of the best. Sometimes I don't understand these reactions or comments about people saying I want this or I feel this. I want to win for Arsenal and that's it. That's easy for me.

“I don't put anything extra in my head because I play against Barcelona in the Nou Camp. It is a special game for everyone because it is a special stadium and we play against a good team and that's it. It's one more game that we want to win.

“We want to do well for the club and we want to get through to the next stage of the Champions League.

“There is nothing more to it than that - we just want to go through and get to the quarter-final.”

Wenger’s other selectorial dilemmas centre on who will partner Jack Wilshere in central midfield in place of the injured Alex Song. Denilson is likely to get the nod over Abou Diaby, while Andrey Arshavin is expected to be preferred to Emmanuel Eboue.

Its Arsenal.. Its Barcelona.. The Game Gets ‘Beautiful’ Again..

Fabregas vs Messi : Who'll Triumph?

I got into a conversation with Friend on Twitter and after exchanging views on our beloved Arsenal I offered to do a preview of the Arsenal v Barcelona Champions league quarter final first leg at the Emirates on Wednesday night. At the time my feelings on the Barcelona tie were that the two games were more or less free games for Arsenal as we are not expected to beat Barcelona and in my opinion the Premier league was a much more realistic target. However the events of Saturday afternoon at St. Andrews may have changed my mind just a little.

It has been five years since Arsenal won a trophy and a lot of their fans are of the opinion that that is too long a gap between trophies. We have of course been spoiled in recent years since Arsene Wenger took over and we won trophies almost every season under him. He told us at the start of this season that he genuinely believed that we would challenge for the league this season and despite countless setbacks he has been proved right. However Saturday’s draw with Birmingham leaves that challenge hanging by a thread and the blow of the injury time goal we conceded so sloppily won’t be easy for the players to overcome.

After a blow like that we could do with a home game against a team who aren’t particularly good at defending as our next game and we have just that on Wednesday night. However, Barcelona don’t have to worry too much about their defending as they would seem to be an irresistible attacking force and for every goal they concede they usually score three or four. They won the Champions league last season in superb style and they also won five other trophies to accompany it while Arsenal could only manage to finish fourth in the Premier league and had to be content with semifinal exits in the Champions league and FA cup as the closet they came to winning a trophy.

In the summer we lost two senior players in Adebayor and Toure and we only brought Vermaelen in which would appear to have made us weaker on the surface but it would seem that the opposite has in fact been true. An argument can be made that if Arsenal hadn’t suffered with the incredible amount of injuries that they have this season that the Premier league title would be all but over by now with Arsenal as the winners. Unfortunately that is not the case and the absence of Van Persie since early November is a blow that could prove to be the most expensive of all to them. A fully fit Van Persie would be an ideal player to cause problems to Barcelona but instead the attack will be led by Bendtner who, in my opinion, has a long way to go to reach the level of Van Persie.

Arsene Wenger has a few big decisions to make before 7.45pm on Wednesday night and the biggest one of all will probably be which position he plays Alex Song in as long as Song is fit after picking up a knock on Saturday. The obvious choice would seem to be to play him in his best role as a holding midfielder but as William Gallas is injured there have been some calls for him to play alongside Vermaelen in central defence. Sol Campbell came back from the wilderness to rejoin us in January and at the age of 35 he finds it hard to play more than one game in a week. He played against Birmingham on Saturday and the thought of Campbell not at 100% having Messi run at him with the ball is one that should frighten any Arsenal fan.

Messi has been in incredible form this season and he seems to have got even better in recent weeks as the goals have flowed from him. He didn’t manage to score at the weekend as Barcelona won 1-0 away to Mallorca and no matter how good he is any player can have an off game at any time. Last summer Barcelona decided to offload Eto’o and replace him with Ibrahimovic and from what I’ve seen he doesn’t exactly fit in with their style of football. A lot of their moves break down when they reach him and I’ve always thought he was a player who could lose his temper very easily. If our players can wind him up just enough he’s liable to react and that could give us an advantage that could to be very costly for Barcelona.

Arsenal have suffered at times this season when teams have got in their face and kicked them from one end of the pitch to the other but Barcelona are like us and they play the beautiful game the way it is meant to be played. I have no doubt that we will get the opportunity to play our football and if Barcelona are in any way complacent they could be forced to pay a heavy price for it. I expect Arsenal to try to play at a very high tempo and force Barcelona on to the back foot but it is a very risky policy against a team who can be so deadly on the break. The manager has to play his strongest team possible and that means that Nasri and Arshavin will both start although Arshavin’s recent form has been anything but impressive. To be honest Rosicky is probably more deserving of a place in the team but I am fairly sure that Arshavin will play. It’s the type of game where he could decide to shine and if he does he’s good to enough to cause any team problems.

Cesc & Xavi : Midfield Maestros

It’s vital for us that Cesc recovers from the knock he took on Saturday and plays as this game is made for a player of his skill and intelligence. He will be up against the man who is still ahead of him in the pecking order for his national team and it will be fascinating to see whether Cesc or Xavi has more influence on the game. The news that Barcelona will be without Iniesta is very welcome for Arsenal as his partnership with Xavi is quite outstanding and it will surely decrease the workload for our midfielders.

I’m a little worried that our moves seem to break down all too often when they reach Bendtner as his touch isn’t at the same level as the other players. I would prefer to see him in the box on the end of any moves rather than taking part in the buildup. It’s annoying at times to see him crossing the ball when he should be the man on the end of those crosses instead. I think Barcelona are suspect defensively and if Puyol plays I think we will get some joy out of him. He is prone to making mistakes and although he is a whole hearted player I think his best days are behind him.

That’s not to say that our defence is exactly strong and with Almunia in goals anything can happen. The defenders don’t have any confidence in him and quite rightly so as he does nothing to inspire that confidence. With Barcelona playing their one touch football and Messi running at us with the ball I will be shocked if we keep a clean sheet. I think we can get a win in the home leg but it will be by only one goal if we do. Barcelona’s form in Europe this season hasn’t been great and even though they won their group they struggled at times throughout those group games.

There is sure to be a fantastic atmosphere at the Emirates on Wednesday night and I will have goose bumps when I hear the Champions league music being played. We will need huge games from Vermaelen, Cesc, Nasri, Song and Arshavin and whoever has the job of marking Messi will have to play out of his skin to keep him under wraps but all of that is possible from an Arsenal team who have beaten AC Milan, Real Madrid and Juventus in the Champions league in the last few years. It’s time for us to gain revenge for our defeat in the 2006 final and I hope we can do it in style on Wednesday night.

Even Henry Wants Arsenal to Win!

When the teams take the pitch on Wednesday night the chances are that a certain Thierry Henry will be in the Barcelona team. It will be a strange thing to see him take the field against Arsenal in the colours of another team but if he does play I am certain he will get a fantastic reception from every single Arsenal fan in the stadium. He is our record goal scorer and an absolute legend at Arsenal and we all know that he still loves the club and its fans too. If he had his own way he wouldn’t be playing on Wednesday night as he finds the thought of it too difficult to handle but as a professional footballer he will still do his very best if he is called upon by his club. I can only hope that the occasion gets the better of him and he does nothing to inflict pain on the Arsenal fans that he loves so much.

Go Gunners..