The instant the final whistle went on February 16th at the Ems, we started to anticipate this moment. A 2-1 halftime lead was a great accomplishment, but we still had an entire second leg to navigate if we were going to progress in the competition – which remained the primary aim.
We got a major, pleasant surprise yesterday when a certain Robin Van Persie – out with a knee injury scoring our goal in the Carling Cup final – participated in the final training session in London, and then caught the afternoon flight to Barcelona with the rest of the squad. At this point, Cesc was all-but-confirmed to start, so Robin’s potential inclusion was another welcome boost. At the Nou Camp presser that evening, however, Arsene was at pains to emphasize that Robin still required a fitness test on the morning of the match, and would not figure if not 100 per cent ready. This cued suggestions that our manager hid Robin for most of the buildup, only to spring a surprise at the last minute…Maybe he (Arsene) did, maybe he didn’t…
Robin passed his Tuesday morning fitness test, so our starting lineup consisted of Szczesny, Clichy, JD, Kos, Sagna (a welcome return from his first leg suspension), Jack, Diaby, Cesc, Rosicky, Robin and Samir.
Al, Eboue, Squillaci, Denilson, Arshavin, Chamakh and Nik rounded out the bench.
Barcelona goalkeeper Valdes returned to the side after an injury scare, but captain Puyol remained unavailable due to injury, and his centre-back partner Pique was suspended following his first leg booking, so a makeshift Barcelona central defence was something for us to look to exploit.
The match kicked off, and Barca were immediately on the attack. They moved the ball crisply and confidently, and we barely got a look in at the start. Rosicky over hit one pass, but we did not see much of the ball. Kos conceded our first corner under pressure from Messi, but we defended it well. This pattern continued for the first quarter of an hour.
Shortly afterwards, Kos picked up the first booking of the evening, a bit of a soft one for a foul on Pedro. Alves took the free kick, which Szczesny confidently saved. Unfortunately, he dislocated a finger in the process and so his evening ended virtually before it started. Al came on in his stead and the pattern resumed, with Barcelona keeping the ball and attacking. While we coped well with the pressure – restricting clear chances to a minimum – our inability to retain the ball for more than a couple of passes put our defence under constant pressure.
Shortly before the half hour mark, Alves tripped Samir, but nothing was given – I didn’t see much difference between the foul on Pedro (which earned Kos the yellow) and this one, but referee Busacca decided to overlook it, it seems. Jack gave Alves a bit of “what for”, and we started to see frustration – with Busacca, as much as the opposition players – manifest in our players. Kos then tripped Messi to concede a free kick, and Sagna went into the book, apparently for a tug on Iniesta, in the next sequence of play.
Thirty minutes gone and we were still holding on, but nerves had definitely started to fray, and we could not get hold of the ball to relieve some of the pressure on our defence. JD cleared smartly as Messi looked set to shoot after making his way into our box. Messi then threw himself down over Diaby’s leg, but this time Busacca did not buy it. Nevertheless, pressure continued to mount in our area.
A few minutes later, Adriano cracked a shot off the post, as Barca appeared to inch closer and closer to a breakthrough. Jack was next into the book for a foul, but Messi could not do much with the resulting free kick. With about five minutes remaining in the half, we finally had a brief spell with the ball in the Barca half. Robin forced a corner, which we couldn’t convert. Then Mascherano brought Jack down with a hefty challenge, Busacca deemed it ok, and then Robin and Abidal squared up, with the latter appearing to grab our striker’s throat. It was Robin that had his name taken, however, for a subsequent shove on Alves.
As we moved into stoppage time, it looked as though we may survive the half, but then disaster struck in the third minute. For some reason, Cesc saw fit to play a backheel near our box. Iniesta was on it like a flash, playing Messi in. The latter first lobbed Almunia then guided the ball into the net.
All our hard defending work undone just like that. At this point, we were headed out of the tie on away goals, aggregate of 2-2.
Arsene made no changes for the second half, but we clearly needed to attack, and get a goal to get ourselves back into this. We started the second half with Diaby bringing the ball into the Barca half, but we could not create a chance. Barca soon took control and pushed us back. This time we countered and Samir earned us a corner. He took it himself, putting a good delivery into the box, and Busquets headed into his own net to bring us level. Suddenly, having looked dead and buried, we regained the lead on aggregate. Our equalizer came in the 52rd minute, so we were looking at about 40 more minutes to hang on, if we could.
Barca immediately sliced us open, and Villa went through on goal, but Al went in where it hurts to block and prevent a goal. Just a couple of minutes after bringing ourselves level on the night, Busacca made himself a big part of the story. Robin was flagged offside in a close call – he continued through and a got a weak shot off (which went wide). Busacca apparently decided that our number ten had willfully ignored the offside whistle take an attempt on goal.
Robin was already on a yellow for squaring up to Alves and the referee quickly showed him a second, dismissing him. When I saw this unfold, I was hard on Robin in my initial reaction, thinking he should have known better. Seeing it again later, I was definitely unfair to him – not only am I confident he really didn’t hear the whistle (is that so out of the realm of possibility in such a noisy stadium?), but why on earth would he continue if he did? It’s not like the goal would count, is it? Robin and our players protested vehemently, but Busacca had none of it and just a couple of minutes after we pulled level on the night and back ahead on aggregate, we had a numerical disadvantage.
As I understand, the laws of the game support Busacca’s decision, but the law would also have supported red carding Abidal when he put his hands on Robin’s neck late in the first half. Even if the law does support the decision, does the referee not have the discretion to apply common sense? Arsenal had just equalized a few minutes before – the game was back on. We have seen referees use discretion and talk to players instead of flashing cards on numerous occasions.
If only Busacca could have considered the context (tie back alive, match level) and the stakes, perhaps he would have kept his card in his pocket. But he chose to believe that Robin intentionally ignored the whistle to fire in a shot that was never going to hit the target – and sent him off. We have to live with it…
So now it was down to ten men to defend our hard-earned aggregate lead. Barca clearly smelled blood and they cranked the pressure – already intense – up another level. Al stood tall to deny both Villa and Messi, but there was a feeling that a Barca goal was inevitable.
Ten minutes after Robin’s dismissal, Iniesta played Xavi, who beat Al to restore Barca’s lead on the evening. At this point, the tie was level on aggregate (3-3), with each side scoring two home goals and one away goal. If it stayed as such, extra time would beckon. Just like Paris, 2005, I had the feeling that once Barca scored against our ten men, another goal would follow. On this occasion, it took only three minutes, with Kos tripping Pedro, Messi tucking the penalty away with a minimum of fuss. Busacca perhaps could have sent Kos off there, as our defender had already earned one yellow for bringing the same player down earlier in the match, so some may argue we got a break there. For me, the damage was done when Robin was harshly dismissed, so it mattered not…
We had no choice but to try and go for it. With fifteen minutes remaining, Arsene brought on Arshavin for Rosicky, and four minutes later, he replaced the struggling Cesc with Nik. Yet Barca continued to press for a fourth and we still could not keep the ball. Al pulled off a string of saves to keep us just a goal down, impressively denying Messi (again!), and substitute Affelay. With just two minutes remaining, we worked an opening and Jack whipped a low cross into the box with Nik lurking – the latter just couldn’t connect when the goal was there to be taken. Remarkably, if that had gone in, we would have leveled the aggregate scores and would have had a real chance to progress on away goals – but Nik just couldn’t react quick enough when we needed him to. That was our chance – and we did not get another…
So another season’s Champions League campaign ended, and the scenario we dreaded – league cup final loss followed by swift exit from the other competitions – beginning to manifest itself. Much will be made of our tradition “Spring collapse” and how we cannot handle losing, over the next several days. Holding serve at Camp Nou was always going to be a tremendously difficult ask – we defended bravely and most of the players gave everything they had – so I do not think that losing this match by itself automatically means our season is over.
We do need to pick ourselves up quickly, however, or it will be over very quickly. We head to Old Trafford this weekend to face Manchester United in the FA Cup Quarterfinals – we are now eliminated from two competitions and have only two remaining to win.
For me, there is no way Arsene can afford to rotate players – I seriously doubt Red Nose will do, not wanting to let us win there and get the belief we can win the league as well. We have to put in a performance and we have to win that tie, above all else at the moment…
Anger and frustration about on the forums regarding the referee’s performance. We got little change from him, that is for certain, and his decision to take the hard-line and show Robin the second yellow when he didn’t need to sealed our fate. Nevertheless, I don’t think he cost us this match. For me, Barcelona were just that much better – over 90-plus minutes, they had nearly 70 percent possession, had 12 (of 20) shots on goal. How many did we have? Zero…And that is ZERO SHOTS, not just shots on goal…Yet we still scored one goal through Busquets and probably would have gotten another if Nik had been able to pull the trigger. But we didn’t….We lost this leg/tie because we could not keep the ball nor win it back off them.
I have little fault with our players, who put in brave shifts and for the most part tried their best. Standouts were Al, Jack, and our back four. Robin, Samir and Rosicky tried to make things happen, but saw so little of the ball – particularly in the first half – that they were virtually irrelevant…Two players – in our midfield – did not rise to the occasion. Our captain struggled all night, and his morale killing backheel attempt came at the worst possible moment – first half injury time after we heroically kept Barca at bay for most of the period.
Cesc may well have been unfit – if so, he shouldn’t have been risked. If he conned Arsene into playing him in such condition, he has now seen the consequences for himself…Even with this, I do not doubt his commitment to Arsenal and I am sure he is shattered over his mistake and overall performance this evening.
Vassiriki “Abou” Diaby also had a poor performance this evening. Like with Cesc, I shan’t bury him either. Despite the fact that we could neither string more than a couple of passes together or get an actual shot off, I think Arsene came here intending to attack and score – Diaby’s inclusion indicated that to me.
If Arsene wanted to defend for 90 minutes, wouldn’t Denilson have been a more appropriate selection? Things didn’t work out because Barcelona played so well, and our midfield didn’t function nearly as well. Like last year’s Camp Nou second leg, this evening seemed to pass Diaby by…It happens…Perhaps if Cesc had played better, Diaby would have as well…
To our lads credit, they did not give up and even if we got a huge slice of luck with Busquets’ own-goal, Samir deserves credit for winning the corner and putting a good ball in, which the Barca defence couldn’t deal with…It just wasn’t enough, but I am still proud of our players overall. We were outclassed technically and dominated all evening, but kept going to the end and emptied the tank well before the final whistle…
I think we can be proud of that in retrospect, but we should certainly not be satisfied. I am personally sick and tired of losing to FC Barcelona – we may have won a battle (first leg) for the first time a couple of weeks ago, but we lost another war in the end. I had high hopes that we could really make an impact in this season’s champions league – instead we badly underachieved, finishing runners-up in a cupcake group and putting a valiant – but ultimately losing effort – in this next round tie…
It feels bad right now, but I think it is going to get worse before it gets better – the Spuddies face an injury depleted, frankly mediocre Milan side tomorrow night in their second leg. Milan looked so dreadful, so inept, in the first leg on their patch; I have no confidence that they will be able to turn things around. So…we should probably brace ourselves for some reminders about Defoe’s prediction that they would progress farther than us in this season’s competition…
This evening’s boards had a lot of outrage towards “cheating Barca” and the “bent referee”…I see where the arguments are, but I am not going to go there. Regardless of those two elements, I just don’t think we played well enough on the whole to win. Even if Nik had scored and we had gone through, I would have considered us extremely fortunate – while absolutely loving it!! But we didn’t, so now we have to pick up the pieces.
I don’t think we will ever get over this hump if we keep focusing on poor refereeing performances – they happen and tonight’s was certainly below par. But there were too many things that we failed to do as well – retain possession and attack, for starters – that I don’t want to harp on the referee and opposition…Each of us is bitterly disappointed with how this turned out and each of us will deal with it in own respective ways…
My choice is to credit Barcelona with out playing us on the night and ultimately deservedly beating us. That does not diminish my pride at our performance against such a great team in such difficult conditions; it raises my hopes that we have seen the benchmark yet again, and have improved on last year’s performances. They have bested us in this competition in four separate seasons now – I don’t know when we will turn it around and knock them out. But I do believe that day is coming – as I think they do – and I do think it will be very, very, painful for them when it does arrive…
We won’t get another crack at them again this season, but we have another nemesis – one which we owe a pounding to – coming up this weekend. I want to see our players angry, frustrated and wanting to make someone suffer and pay in blood for this. I can think of no better team to take it all out on than Manchester United…
FC Barcelona will have to wait at least another season for theirs, but we can take care of United in a few days – and hopefully take a big step towards the two remaining trophies we can win this season…
I meant to end there, but I want to add a quick note on the unfortunate Szczesny. Arsene stated he has a dislocated finger and that the tendon needs to be assessed for damage. I would expect him to be out for at least a little while, so our injury list is not abating. Al deserves a ton of credit for coming in on short notice and keeping us in this. Our defenders – particularly JD – played very well, but without Al, the scoreline would have been humiliating.
Szczesny’s injury means he is the only fit senior goalkeeper at the club (surely we have to recall Mannone now?) and he will get a run in the first team. If Al can consistently replicate the form he showed tonight, we should be ok in goal. Our defence is much better now than it was when he lost his place, so hopefully that will help his confidence and form.
Written by Oliver
Morning…
Morning all,
Blinding post Oliver.
Well i woke up as i went to bed with the hump, i had to watch the game again before i went up, and watched it again this morning, and i think we was robbed but what do i know.
Morning rico,
you supprised me with a late post, i never saw it till this morning, you had the hump as well then.
Morning Steve, i still have the hump too, cannot believe that game, the ref and us losing…
We were so strong in defence for once and just.. well just…. 🙁
Good morning Humpy Gooners.
Steve Palmer has been telling me for many many months that the games are fixed. Well Steve, for what its worth I BELIEVE you now. Lets just see which English club Barcelona get drawn against in the next round (I am assuming that 1 of the 3 left will get through). What UEFA did not want under any circumstances is an ALL ENGLISH FINAL at WEMBLEY in MAY. But they missed a trick with their fixing/meddling/cheating – a final Arsenal v Barcelona would have been such a world wide advert for the “beautiful” game.
Morning DJ – i also think something untoward goes on in football – no proof but i just don’t buy that all the refs can get decisions so wrong against us….
Morning JD you are without doubt a person with common sense, we will always be cheated untill the corrupt world of football is investigated and proven to be match fixers that we all know them to be
I am still so narked about rvp being grabbed around the throat and the barca player staying on the pitch….
Morning all.good read oliver.we lost the game i agree.i won’t add anything about the ref as all has been said.what i want now is us to clear the deadwood in the summer.if AW wants to win the CL we’ll have to get personell to match or at least get close to barca.
A case of the referee seeing what he wants to see rico. JD sorry about the DJ keep playing tht tune ha ha
A great post im so proud of the majority of the players last night it just confirmed everything and more importantly hopefully to arsene that a major clear out is required in the summer. Rosicky,denilson,diaby,bendtner,squidqy,fabianski,evenalmunia who did his job last night have got to go for starters and be replaced with our promising younger players who are out on loan getting good experience and 4 experienced proven international players that have been round the block and know how to win and spread a different mentality in the dressing room.We can go on about the ref who was a homer and the rvp decision was appalling but the gap was there for all to see and we now have a target and standards to aspire to with the ball and more importantly without the ball their closing down is just fantastic. So now their will be no excuse for tiredness when we will not be playing or travelling all around europe to pick up the 2 domestic trophys available. Arsene must play the first team at the mancs on saturday and not the usual subjects that are just not good enough.
Morning KTR, your post was accurate yesterday, only i wasn’t prepared for what happend, supprising realy i said last night this game will hinge on a referee’s decision, but i was hoping for one in our favour, never going to happen in Europe
Good points Glen, i think you have nailed it on the head mate
Good comment glenn……! Spot on.
Well said Steve 😉
Last night was a combination of “Dark Forces” and players that aren;’t good enough to be wearing an Arsenal shirt….sell the dross and re-invest in proven experienced players!!
Steve you could see why i was abit pessimistic in my post.when they peg you back its very difficult to get yourself out of their grip.if we are to match barca’s work rate off the ball we need more pitbulls like jack.
Morning KT, well there is plenty of dead wood to get rid of…
How do we pick ourselves up, thats the worry now…
You also need fit players on the pitch KT that can run and hussle and put pressure on the opposition not ones that can just about jog around….!
spot on glen….
Steve – i think that ref must be a relation to webb, dowd and evry other pl ref when they perform against us…
Hi WATH
Their defence was probably the weakest we could face but we couldn’t test them…..
KTR,morning wath& lee
yeh we need a few changes, i dont doubt Barcas briliance but i do doubt as Souness and his cronies that they would have won anyway, Barcas a quality side no doubt about it but if bendy had managed to take his chance we could have nicked it, with all their possesion we still could have won. Many a time i have watched our possesion turn into losses. but i would just like to go back on some of my comments over the past few weeks about our bottle, we may have been out played, but those boys were out on their feet last night, and should be commended, we were unfortunate to lose our first substitute early doors and it would make a difference when the legs got tired, with Robins sending off and the work rate spread on the rest of the team, they done brilliant i was well pleased with them they lost but they went down fighting.
morning Lee…
rico, i am getting thic,ker skined now i’m getting older, but i have no doubts that if there is a decision against on saturday it will be against us, somone said dark forces a very apt sentence
Yes we may have nicked it steve but id prefer we focussed on what went wrong and how we can fix our problems.bendy needs to go.most strikers would’ve buried that.add diaby,denilson,Al,rosicky.we need a dynamic dribbler to assist nasri similar to how messi and iniesta function.also promote some youth players.
Haha Steve, how long do i have to wait to become thick skinned 😉
I honestly think our players tried but barca are just excellent.we should aspire to reach that level.their workrate,ball control and passing was sublime.they kept up that level for the entire game.
Kt, did i just read Diaby on your list of clear outs 😉
But yes, time for a clear out indeed, we have players coming through the ranks so all we need to do is buy a new spine, simple!
Oh and make that an English one…..
Rico i have been patient enough.lets win the PL and FA cup first.make adjustments in the summer then go all out for the CL and retain the PL ofcourse.
Arsenal’s long-standing indiscipline consistently undermines your chances. Wenger’s always turned a blind eye to it, but it hurts you every season. Four Arsenal payers quite rightly booked in first half and VP could easily have received a second before the break. That is the context in which the ref awarded the second yellow in the second half.
I’m hoping that last night’s fiasco reffing really fires fight into this side rather than go on a sulk – we’ll soon see hwat this lot are made of…
Kt, sadly i think wenger will stand by him….
KTR, I wouldnt dissagree,but i think there comes a time that either Wenger stands up and asks for an enquirery into decisions like last night or he buggers off, it will not matter what players we field, to the results, while everything is fixed, Wenger is a very clever man while he keeps mum about the happenings of these bodies we are still in there earning, this has nothing to do with fairness and the right decisions its about money. Ever since the Champions league was founded we have qualified which means we have been top four for fffing ages and we havent won anything for six or seven years, why not because we havent a team to compete and win, no its because were cheated, we will be cheated out of the FA cup as well that i have no doubt on, but we will still be turning up and watching our team and making them 3 mill every game.I say stand up Wenger and tell them enough is enough
Did you miss the hand on RVP throat devildog or are you just ointing out Arsenal ill-discipline ?? As i remember raise a hand to an opponent is a red card offence is it not..?
If we are not careful we may blow 3 trophies in 2 weeks.
You can just see the mancs being awarded a penalty at OT in the weekend…
Good comment Steve, so close always but yet so far, there has to be a reason for that…
Also, if we are not careful we are soon to be very exposed, teams around us are building steadily and the league will get tighter and tighter as the seasons go by – we are only where we are as others have slipped up.
I think our position is somewhat false right now….
The red card screwed us.Aw never really intended to attack barca.he set us up to frustrate and tire them out.when they got desperate AA would come on and play on the counter.it was a smart plan and it looked like it would’ve worked but the red card screwed us.
KTR, i honestly feel that if we had, had a breakaway goal we had several players on a yellow we would most definitly lost another.
I would bet with my lifes saveings which is not a lot, that we have a couple of bookings in the first 15 minutes at the weekend, any one want a bet
Well we lost but I blame the referee and Mister WENGER for not buying quality players; do you think a Drogba , Rooney, Ronaldo, Barbetov,Anelka,Eto,or Henry would have missed that Bendtner 87th minute opportunity?
Then again what were we doing playing Barcelona in this round , oh if we had not placed ourself second in our group we wouldn’t have played Barcelona ?
I just blame Wenger , trust me Wenger is costing us a lot.
Morning guys.
No shame in being beaten by the best team in the world.
Shame on the ref for being that openly biased.
And, we need to learn lessons. We need to press like that, we need to play like that, we have the basics of that team and have several players who are good enough but time in the summer for Wenger to earn his corn.
Well done Eduardo, at least he made it into the quarters….
Darren bent would’ve buried that.
Our complacency in the group stages really came back to bite us.lets hope being out of the CL helps us win the league similar to chelsea last season.
Steve, having read your comments since you’ve been on HH your sensible and have common sense, to say we ain’t won anything for five years due to us being cheated is way off the mark. Yes we seem to get far more crap decisions more than anyone else yet you can’t blame refs all the time for our weaknesses and our failures when we don’t have the required quality of players to be successful and to lift trophies. Sure we seem to always get stitched up but in general if we were 15% better most of these dicisions would not make one iota of difference. We know fifa and uefa and the fa are bent but that’s not the reason we ain’t won things mate.
What was Cesc thinking with that back heel…and the Ref you Mug robbed us in flood lights. Gutted
Hi Will and SD…
WATH, I think its down to a bit of both, the crap that wenger buys to back up the first team and a string of dreadful decisions…
KT, we knew it would though, wengers complacency shone through again didn’t it – he took games for granted instead of going for the kill…
Howdy Erick…
Liking your positivity there K-TR7, true that Bent would have buried that (i almost cried )that was a gift of a wonderful cross from an 18 year old and he and being in front of the last man 3 minutes to go , only 1 goal needed , Vela would have buried that, Rooney would have, even Bobby Zamora would have but no BENDTNER fluffed the ball .
Wenger need to sell Bendtner now – he is too casual in his approach .RVP needs another player of the same quality as him or even better than him playing beside him.
Wenger needs to listen now : I wouldn’t like to disrespect him but he is getting on my nerves.
We have passengers and its time they left. Am saying this with alot of Respect.
Hallo to everyone, apologise for my bad manners..the game was coming to life then..oh my God
Henry would have curled it around valdez with only 1 touch.
Wath I agree to some extend with Steve it sometimes impossible to play above the Ref, but we have some poor players that agree with you mate
WATH we agree to disagree thats what we blog for opinions
Fabrègas assisted messi’s first goal.he replaced silvestre in yesterday’s clash.
Hi ya Rico + gang, your late post threw me, i’d kicked the cat and gone to bed with the massive hump!Read the comments this morning from last night’s post, there really are some olympic standard pratts out there!!!!
Lee, the late post from Rico def stirred up a hornets nest……. Seems most were in agreement with his antics being not right some said embarrassment was to harsh and some were just completely brain dead n blinkered but just shows how pathetic it is that if you don’t agree with a players actions or dare question them or the club or you you don’t kiss theirs arses your not a real fan is the common response which is of course total shit.
Mourinho’s madrid lost 5 nil there.
😆 Lee, it’s funny, i had switched off the TV, Laptop with the hump but my ‘hump’ got the better of me having seen those pictures of cesc snogging the barca players – so much so i ranted in a post and got s few things off my chest…
annoyingly i couldn’t keep up with the comments for the ‘olympic standard pratts’ trying to get on here 🙂
It was therapeutic though WATH 😉
Jack will be arsenal captain soon.
morning all…another busy morning for me, but hopefully we can get over this quickly…we spend so much time looking ahead to the next match because we disappoint in the big matches…if arsene and the players want to sit and sulk about the injustice of it all, our season will be over by april fool’s day…
KT, i think he will be in time but not for a good few seasons yet…..
morning oliver, cracking write up again…
no time for sulking and i don’t think they will either, robin was furious at the end of the game, he can use that fury to fire the boys up for the mancs….
Wenger
‘I spoke to Uefa people. They are shocked as well because it killed a promising, fantastic football match. What for? If it’s a bad tackle or a second bookable offence okay, but frankly it is embarrassing.’
rico, just like to comment on one of yours i missed earlier, about us being in a false position owing to the misfortunes of others, i have to agree with that comment. Others have stated that the Premier league is the trophy to win, i believe we debated this not so long ago, or was it just before we got knocked out of our first trophy. When we have to rely on other clubs mistakes which we have nothing to do with to win the league, is not realy a measure of us, We should be more or less out of the equasion but were still there. good point there.
I wonder if wenger will make an emergency application for a keeper signing?
i say sensible things sometimes Steve 😉
Rico, nice to hear Wenger actually spoke to them, i bet they phoned him, to ask him about his rant at the ref.
Hi Oliver, we’ll be out of everything long before april fools day….! If we lose saturday that will have a massive impact on moral and the belief to win anything i reckon. Sat is a huge game, we need to win.
We should have won the Carling cup then we wouldn’t cared about this CL game at all.Then i will be all smiles this morning.
Chelsea are dreaming right now because they know that we are wounded and Man utd is never the same without Ferdinand and Vidic playing together and Man city are just generally not ready.
The thought of the spuds qualifying for the quarter finals and we are not is a pill i can’t swallow right now.
Anyone know the latest on our well rested centerback has he left or what. vern or verm somthing like that anyway
They are waiting for the ref report steve, then they can throw the book at him and robin no doubt….
And how many of us will be hoping Fergie rests a few ahead of their CL match a few days after..??
It shouldn’t be like that though – we should have the team with the ability and belief to beat them, regardless of who red nose plays….
SD, try not to think about it… it’s sickening but its our own (wengers) fault….
Could be a touchline ban a fine and a three match ban for Van the man, looks like i’ll be playing more golf
From 4 to 2 and I can see that being 1 and it is simply because Wenger will not spend.
This is worth a read…..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1364362/Martin-Samuel-Bungling-referee-Massimo-Busacca-makes-easier-Barcelona-masters.html
And Samuel doesn’t even like us much WATH….
Steve, at least they’ll only be out for the CL qualifiers 🙁
Will – true, three players, thats not asking too much…
As a mate of mine said this morning, we crying out for 11 jack’s with passiona dn fight and a will to win, all we want is for them to show fight and to see that it hurts when we lose just like we hurt.
i would say we now need 5 or 6 top class players.
Yeh, good show Wath, i think that explains it quite well
Could of been worse, it could have been the final
We’ve already been stitched by them in one final that was enough, see uefa have charged Wenger and Nasri with comments to the ref after the game…. Will they charge the ref with incompetence…? utter shower of shit the lot of them…!
Good job I was not the manager, I would have taken the players off and refused to continue while that cheat was on the pitch and tell UEFA they had to explain to the money paying sponsors why the game was suddenly off.
Will, I reckon three big big players down the spine of the team, striker central midfielder and centre half, along with a few of the younger players coming through and will getting rid of the ones that are not good enough I think we’d be pretty close then mate.
Agree big time WATH about having ten more jacks….
As good as barca were 13 out of their 19 attempts came after the red card.when we play possession football in the league we are often called ‘weak’ and ‘clueless’ for failing to generate cricket scores in our matches.the media then laud the opposition for defensive masterclass.we were doing just that yesterday but all i could hear from the commentators was how we could not live with them.we have received no credit whatsoever for how organised we were to limit them to only 6 attempts before rvp was sent off.
I say an experienced top class keeper, brutal central defender, terrier midfielder and a clinical striker who will give us 40 games a season.
I would add a couple of top class squad players and then let the youngsters learn and grow.
I also find it amazing how nasri and rvp were strangled on the neck but they are the ones who end up being punished.alves is a horrible cheat and he wasn’t even punished for his scissor kick on nasri.we had 19 fouls yet we received 5 yellow cards while they had 8 fouls and not a single card.even a neutral would’ve seen how poor the officiating was.
We had all that Will, then Wenger sold them all.
Will, we’re not asking for a lot, surely he can see the flaws in this squad, swallow your pride wenger and out the shit, and bring in some quality…it’s not like it’s his own fcking money!!!!
KTR Nothing changes, ive had my moan and am feeling better but we have not heared the end of this. No one likes The Arsenal a lifetime of watching them has proven that to me, we moan to deaf ears i’m afraid, in a month or so it will be brought up but at the moment all of the pundits and media will be crowing about is how wonderfull Barca was, unless of course one of the other Premier sides get through and meets Barca and then i dont think it will be quite so one sided. meanwhile bans and fines look on the cards, but i doubt anybody will care.
Who cares about the ban , Wenger will speak more and point more fingers.
Football is one of the most controversial games on the planet, week in week out there is always a question about officiating.
And all this can be reduced by nearly 95% if only they would include a 4th official who judges by looking a video replays and could see what the referee could not see.
Forget goal line technology, the game needs a 4th official.
I read the comments of everybody and understand your worries about the state of our players, a clear out is called for, a couple of experienced defenders, experienced midfielders needed a top striker to run alongside Robin. Just remember somthing we are sitting in second place in the league with a better than average chance of winning it lost out to a fluke goal in the Carling final, and just played the best team in the world, was leading untill an outrageous cheating decision, and half our team on yellow cards and yet the best team only managed to breach our defence twice Messis penalty i have not counted as we wasnt breached, and it was a refs decision, now that in my book is fucking awsome for young lads. Give the buggers a bit of credit, yes we need a few changes but it aint that bad.
Off for a bit, later all….
From the tweets of our players they seem angry.i hope they use that emotion to create a siege mentality to drive us to glory.lets hope all our season’s hardwork isn’t destroyed in 2 weeks.
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11945_6803968,00.html
Wenger and Nasri charged
Afternoon all
Steve, when put like that sounds a lot more encouraging…we lost 4-3 over 2 legs to the best team on the planet and things may of been different if…..
Lee, the lads are learning that the knocks are Bruising at this level, but a lot of Players in this league would love to be in our lads position, and this is supposedly the best league in the world, i find that strange.
Imagine if Almunia had been sold in Jan?mannone/shea would’ve been the ones coming on.it may have ended worse.
If spuds go through they’ll be unbearable.
They’ll have to win the whole competition because fourth looking tough for them….
KTR, i’m afraid i am one of them people you probably hate, any English side even the spuds i want to win against foreign opposition, i would be happy if they went on and won it, yeah my spud mates would give me stick, but if they do good luck to them i would love to see Barca suffer even if i had to as well.
TBUZZ, Just noticed your link, i had commented earlier that i wanted Wenger to stand up, Maybe i missjudged him.
KTR7, Spurs are having a Fairy-tale season and they can beat this AC Milan team. Are they going to win the trophy? Hah! Yeah, right!
Steve, I hear ya
Spuds will beat Ac Milan and they should make a 2 disc DVD with special commentary and behind the scene footages.
Because that is where the story ends.
So let me get this right, the ref can be the biggest cheat on the planet but you can’t call him on it?
Wenger should take our in house lawyer, a DVD of the game and ask them to explain their officials actions.
ahhh…the fallout from a miserable night…i am waiting to hear status of szczesny’s finger tendon and cesc’s hammy…speaking of the latter – i read somewhere or other that he may have felt a twinge as early as the 15th minute last night. has anyone else heard this? if true, he probably should not have played on – although this would have been around the time of szczesny’s injury, so i can partially understand not wanting to make two subs in the first quarter-of-an-hour…regardless, cesc’s overall performance was so poor that we probably should have done without him…
Possession is pointless if you do sod all with it.goals decide games and if bendy had scored i wouldn’t have cared.what is the point of having goalposts anyway if you don’t put the ball through them?
Afternoon, so Nasri had his say too then, good on him – funny how they haven’t charged RvP, guess uefa dont watch Sky Sports….
you and me both KT, isn’t that just what everyone says about us, all possession and no end product? Until RvP got sent off we were holding our own, just…
then it all went t**s up 🙁
Oliver i also heard that.i guess cesc didn’t want to make us lose 2/3 subs in fifteen minutes in such an important game.
I am just glad I am not a manager.
oliver – i don’t think i have ever seen cesc play so badly, you are right, he may aswell not been playing….
Will, i suspect wenger wasn’t very polite in how he worded his complaint, nor Nasri…
Mind you, i’m sure there are many afc fans who would have liked to do to him what nasri and rvp had to suffer….
Abidal should have been sent off…
Who grabbed Nasri??
RICO I was saying to stupid spuds fans that comment on our blogs that before the vp lashing Abidal and Iniesta got away with murder, the first on VP and the second On Nasri.
REf. was shocking as well as our team and especially Fabregas.
I would hold a press conference and have a video and ask for clarification as to why certain offences were considered offences and some where not when they were exactly the same.
Hi Osi, you won’t see a spud on here today, i’ll tell you 😉
So it was Iniesta on Nasri….
That what naffs me off, two who put ‘hands on’ our players and don’t even receive a yellow…..
Well, all i hope is that Cesc thinks long and hard about wanting to join a side who can do that to his teamates….
“I would hold a press conference and have a video and ask for clarification as to why certain offences were considered offences and some where not when they were exactly the same.|
I agree with that Will
We are a few smartbuys away from having an excellent side.
good to see the giants all-pro defensive end here. although i always thought umenyiora supported man united…just kidding…
Milan are going to be dismantled tonight.they have no chance.
I think we also need a strong characters who can help the team when we’re in trouble; the ones who can organise the team and lead by example. Fab is not a great captain and Denilson was right in saying that.
Last night we have one our best team out there but we lacked organisation, leadership, and cool heads. Every Arsenal player looked like a child and gave the ball away cheaply. Except Nasri I didn’t see anyone else who had completed their passes.
How long have we been saying that KT??
Wenger needs to start bloomin listening and spending….
Osi, jack wasn’t all bad…
We play open against barca we are naive.we defend well we are betraying our philosophy.
Off for some dinner, back in a while…
Guys have u seen these images
http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/2435/tumblrlhrjn3kdoe1qdqmz4.gif
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/810/tumblrlhrm02eoet1qcimf9.gif
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/4600/tumblrlhrmbkou5q1qcimf9.gif
hiw have wenger and nasri been charged and not robin??
and i agree with waths comment earlier..
if i was wenger i would have called the players off the pitch after that decision..
fuck em..theres no point in playing if your going to get decisions like that..
nice post oliver
but
the laws of the game dont back up that dickheads decision..kicking the ball away in petulance or in a manner that is wasting time backs up his decision
robin did niether he had a shot..the refs whistle went one second before robin made contact..
he was in the box he had a shot
messi did the same thing later in the game..i think barca was flagged for offside and messi still shot..
does that require a yellow too??
no..cos its not in the laws of the game
otherwise when players scored offside goals they would get booked…
it was a disgrace and uefa fifa the fa the whole world know it..
Hi jj
no way did robin deserve his second yellow – one second from the whistle to the shot… 95.500 fans in the ground, jeez… that ref was a fool….
forgot that messi did the same… one rule for one eh…..
rico
abial and whoever had rvp and nasri by the throat
under the laws of the game both should have seen red but not even a yellow was shown
sconds later rvp smashed alves in retibution and got booked..
that booking doesnt happen if those players are punished accordingly..
barca dont win if both men get punished accordingly but barca are the man u of europe and they get to do what they want
i dont admire any part of barcas game whatsoever they are set of cheating fuckers and they are bad for football…
jj, thanks for clarifying…i wasn’t completely sure that the laws stated such – i thought they did, but couldn’t actually find anything in the laws…so i said i “understood” on the basis of having seen cautions for similar previously…
regardless, it was exceptionally poor judgment and game managment from the referee, especially considering the context and stakes.
Stef those images are what I saw earleir today and absolute fuckin disgrace, the ref is right there and did fuck all…! There is Nas n Wengers defence when they go to uefa next week, simply show those images and say thats why we are totally correct in stating that the ref ruined the game and was biased and totally incompetant.
jj – i know, i ws saying that earlier – both shoul;d have seen red but got nowt, a disgrace……
Spuds have got battered that half.
Sorry Stef, i missed you coming on and the pics – seeing that again makes me seethe, arsenal should send/use those against uefa…
absolutely shameful that those two stayed on….
good kt, lets hope the battering continues and milan win….
all seems quiet here so i’m off to catch up on some ironing 🙁 🙁
see you tomorrow….
Nite Rico….
Spuds are through.
Yids through…
Gutted lost wedge to a yid mate, before the draw I had us going further than them…..
who cares about the spuds??
the longer they stay in the cl the more they will fuck up in the PL and as soon as they play a barca or a madrid its night night so let them have their 1-0 on agg against one of the weakest teams in the comp..
i hope they get shaktar next round cos they will screww them sideways upways downways and round and round..
Forget about those incidents. These statistics are most worrying:
1 – Can’t string 3 consecutive passes.
2 – Only one shot on-target – i.e. Van Persie’s “red-card” shot.
3 – Barca 70% possession
4 – Barca completed 738 passes to Arsenal’s 199.
Meaning:
This TEAM is not the finished product yet and need a minimum of 2 years to gell. Provided Wenger can keep this squad together, then by 2012/13, we will have a core of 24-27 year old battle-hardened veterans as a title-winning TEAM.
I believe Wenger will not field a full-strength side against ManU this weekend as he may very well had switched his focus to win the title by winning the remaining 10 league games.
CL Cup distractions for ManU, Chelski and S*CUMS mean that they cannot focussed fully on league games alone, plus facing congested fixtures as well. And we should seize this slight advantage to win games and pile the pressure on ’em during this title race final furlong.
Forget about BRUM, forget about BARCA and even forget about FA Cup qtr final tie against ManU.
The crucial “must-win” game is away to WBA on 20-March-2011…and the next “must-win” league game….and the next…the next…till May-22.
All other issues are just water flowing beneath the bridge.
Come 20-March against WBA, will it be:
Come the Houreth, cometh the Man?
Or another dreadful 0-0 scoreline?
morning all
new one up
Surely for Arsenal any game against Barcelona is always going to end the same way ? Both clubs play exactly the same way, but Barcelona are simply the best in the world at that type of football. Mourinho has shown how you can beat the Spaniards and its not by playing them at their own game. Unfortunately Arsenal only play one way and its not the way to win against Barcelona. The upside is it shouldn’t really have any significance as far as domestic football is concerned.