Barcelona V Arsenal: Nou chance thanks to Busacca

So it was another quiet night in Catalonia then. A possible broken finger, grown men grabbing each other’s throats, a ridiculous sending off decision and confrontations at the final whistle. And amidst all this a football match was played.

Those that were hoping for another beautiful spectacle between these two sides must have been greatly disappointed (as was I) for what promised to be a legendary game was, well turned into a bit of a shambles for Arsenal really.

Wenger risked Fabregas and Van Persie (who was originally meant to be out until April) by including them in the starting 11 and in honesty I can’t say they looked properly fit to me which didn’t help. Song and Theo were missing through injury and Rosicky and Diaby started in midfield. Barca were missing Pique (suspension) and Puyol (injury).

We started the game by marking tightly and we certainly weren’t being no pushovers which earned us a few yellow cards. Clichy made a strong tackle on Xavi near the start but escaped a card however Koscielny found himself in the book after Pedro went down.

Wilshire and Sagna were also yellow carded whilst Nasri was hacked down by Alves I think it was and I feared the worst watching him rolling about on the floor luckily he got up while young Jack and Alves were still eyeballing each other.

Away from the cards Barcelona had the majority of possession as was to be expected and we didn’t exactly help by giving the ball away on several occasions. Despite their possession Barca weren’t overrunning us like they did last time at the Nou Camp though Adriano did hit the post with his effort from a tight angle.

Following a free kick which Alves took after Kos had pulled down Pedro, Szczesny grabbed the ball and clasped it safely but 2 seconds after he was signalling to the bench in pain and something was clearly wrong. Alumnia replaced the Pole in goal. Barca were piling on pressure after that and there was a lot of last ditch tackling going on; Djourou made two important ones on Messi in the area.

Arsenal were being pinned back and RVP showed his frustration when some of the Barca players accused Jack of feigning injury and there was some handbags which ended with the Dutch man getting booked for a shove on Alves; obviously the ref didn’t see Nasri being grabbed by the throat the Spanish team night as well have had a 12^th man on the field with the decisions going their way.

We almost got through the first 45 at 0-0 when the Captain had a horror moment. He tried a neat little back heel near our box instead of just hoofing clear and Iniesta pounced on his mistake and sent Messi through who made no mistake scoring past Alumnia with a little dink and volley.

I couldn’t believe some of the abuse Cesc was getting on twitter, yes it was a horrible moment and yes he shouldn’t have tried that so near to our box but stupid mistakes happen and they will keep on happening, although to be fair after the cup final it would be nice if they would stop happening to us.

On 53 minute we had renewed hope after wondering where the equaliser would come from when following a Nasri corner Busquets headed into his own goal, 1-1 and game on.

Alumnia did well after coming on and prevented Villa from scoring straight after our equaliser.  The RVP sending off which following after was just silly. Cesc played a ball over the top and RVP had brought the ball down and shot wide however the ref had already blown for offside. Van told the ref he hadn’t heard the whistle yet the red card stood and we were down to ten men against the best passing side there is.

Against 11 we were struggling but you felt we could just possibly hold on, but with 10? IT wasn’t really likely now Barca had the extra space to exploit their slick passing game; and although I hate Barca and I do with a passion, there is no denying they are a damn good team. Barca began to take advantage of the sending off and despite some saying today we would have lost anyway and yada yada the fact is due to

a stupid refereeing decision we will never know what might have happened because the ref did effectively kill the game and gave Barca the extra momentum like the needed it.

Alumnia made some excellent saves to deny Barca and I have to give him full credit for his performance because he’s had a very frustrating season but he was asked to step up and he did.

On 69 minutes Arsenal couldn’t hold out any longer and Xavi found the net thanks to a deflection off Sagna. Messi put the game to bed with a penalty after Kos again brought down Pedro. 3-1 Barca, 4-3 on agg and out the champions league we went.

Saying that today I’ve heard many disgruntled Arsenal fans express their frustration at Bendtner who, had his first touch been better he could have converted Wilshires cross in the last few minutes and we could of talking about a victory (on agg) by the skin of our teeth now instead of just another nearly chance.

Had RVP been on the pitch still like he should have been he might have buried that chance. But that’s just if’s and buts. Bendtner could of scored, Cesc could have hoofed the ball clear instead of trying a fancy back pass. The red card might not be the reason we lost the game but it certainly contributed a hell of a lot to changing the game; before the card Barca had nowhere near as many shots on goal before the card as they did after. Thanks to the ref we will never know what MIGHT have happened.

That is why the team can’t dwell now; Nasri and Wenger have been hit by UEFA charges today for comments made following the game about the referee and as much as I understand while they feel aggrieved, they have to move on now because as much as the red card may have made our mission a lot harder we can point to other factors that also contributed to our loss.

Our ‘star’ players weren’t 100% fit, we did give the ball away on too many occasions and we made mistakes and we paid for them. Having said that, the referee is still a c*nt.

So lets move on now, and focus on getting a result against Manchester United in the FA cup this week,  there is nothing like another big game to help us learn and move on from the last.

Bergybabe xxx