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Stats might not lie but that doesn't mean they necessarily approach the truth on their own either.
Quality of possession and chances speaks a lot more in this case. I'm not going to go as far as to say Arsenal were 'dominated' or anything as absurd as that; it was an open game and both sides were capable of winning it, which is partly why it was such a good game for the neutrals.
But Barcelona did have the better of the game overall and while maybe they would've been slightly fortunate to win, I think Arsenal would have been a bit more fortunate to have even forced a draw. Barca's chances were of better quality throughout, for instance a sizable proportion of theirs were one-on-ones while a 'typical' Arsenal chance in that game would have been passing around the box, getting frustrated, and Nasri/Van Persie trying a very speculative shot outside the box that either misses harmlessly or is blocked down.
If you think about it, statistically Messi's one-on-one miss in the initial phase of the game would have been statistically worse' than, say, Robin Van Persie's limp volley that Valdes easily picked up as one was on target and one was not, yet we all know how much, much more dangerous the former was.
Arsenal didn't fluke a win by any means, they took their chances and Barcelona did not. But that doesn't stop Arsenal still being fortunate to win on the overall balance of the game, stats or not.
As a perfect example here, someone going on the BBC stats alone would have assumed Arsenal had the slightly better game against Barcelona, while say someone watching just the highlights on ITV, with the sheer amount of penetration Barcelona enjoyed particularly in the first half and in parts of the second, probably would assume Barcelona were really hemming L'Arse in for most of the game. Neither really tell the whole story.
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Does that show that Arsenal have better odds of going through?
