UEFA Champions League/Europa League 8/9/10 March *** Spoilers ***

So Fabregas has one bad game in which he is carrying a knock anyway and all of a sudden Arsenal fans are quite happy to see the back of him?

:/
 
Even as a keen Spurs fan, I was hoping for Arsenal to finish the job this evening, for the sake of English football (Jack Wilshere, the EPL etc) if nothing else.

That said I did have a chuckle when Bendtner fluffed his chance. I just love every time he falls flat on his face (metaphorically as well as actually) as I *hate* his smug smirk and his strutting around the pitch. Stick to Leyton Orient mate!

Listening to the match on R5L, Arsenal fans must be sick of Alan Green; every time he took over the commentary Barca scored!
 
Yeah defence wasn't really the problem tonight, they did as well as could be expected (i.e. a bit lucky but not completely hopeless) and I don't think we set out to park the bus, it's just the players were too afraid to go forward in numbers, too hesitant to attack, and too poor with their passing, that they fell into the same trap 90% of other teams do against Barca and basically end up sat in their own half inviting relentless attacks... which we did sort of well at repelling for nearly all the first half.

If we'd have been a bit more aggressive then we'd have taken the pressure off ourselves big time. Goal kicks got hoofed upfield, we lost it, ball went straight back. Utterly gash football when the team are capable of much better. They never passed a goal kick out, moved the ball about and tried to build anything, it was painful to watch.

At least with an inconsistent ref they can focus the blame on that as to mask over their poor performance and use it as incentive for the weekend, but we'll never win anything if we keep folding when it really matters.
 
Firstly, the red card was incredibly harsh, and I did laugh at Wenger in the post match comments where he was just trying to hold back a massive grin after saying that he told the ref exactly what he thought at the end of the game. :D

Anyway, the ref was poor for both sides tonight, early penalty should have gone Barcelona's way in addition to the one they had and the amount of chances that Dani Alves wasted to take a shot or play someone else in with a better ball and it could have been a cricket score. Yes maybe we would have done better with 11 men on the pitch and yes the second yellow was quite harsh BUT van Persie did lash out needlessly for his first yellow, although I was kind of pleased because of the amount of diving and complaining that Alves was doing. Also it was a bit of revenge for him kicking out at Nasri after a tackle.

I can't really complain that much about the result we were simply outplayed, they didn't embarrass us like last year, we did much better and in the end it was only a 1 goal deficit on aggregate, if Bendtner buries that late chance then it's a different game perhaps but meh, as Redknapp said in the studio if we had just won our group this could all have been avoided or at least postponed. 0 shots says everything you need to know, we didn't get any real opportunities, there was nobody up front to pass to, even less so after RVP was dismissed and we rarely made it out of our own half. I thought Wilshere was fantastic once again and I also thought the centre backs and the keeper were also. Almunia made some excellent saves, he could have maybe just guessed a direction at the penalty but you can't blame him for it.

Anyway, it's done and dusted now and I think in a way it's a relief, we're out, let's just move on and keep the ball rolling in the league, win the games we should be winning and give Utd a good arse kicking in the cup, and here's to next year in the CL. :p
 
Damn, football can be annoying! RvP sent off for nothing while Rafael and Carragher both stayed on the pitch at the weekend after commiting potential career ending tackles! However on the balance of play over the two legs the better side won, and it could have been double figures tonight. Football is lucky that Messi is completely left sided or they would be no stopping him.
 
Barcelona just did exactly the same as they did to man utd in the final to arsenal. After years of "man utd didn't show up" my dad finally saw the glory of Barcelona crushing a team in their own third is nothing to do with the other team not turning up.

If you can break through the initial edge of you 18 yard box press, there is acres of space to exploit. You would need Lennon, bale, Modric and a clever Dutch forward to pull that off though. /smirk off.
 
You mean when we played Nasri (not Wilshere) centrally at the start of the season?

Yeah it worked well. But would I rather have one player who can create a goal from nothing, or two? Hmm, tough question.

BBC have an article about this. In 5 games in october without Cesc, Nasri scored 5. In 4 in November without Cesc, Nasri scored 4.
 
Back
Top Bottom