Barcelona Vs Arsenal | Champions League QF L2 06/04/10

[GunnGunn]

Yes, he did have a shocker, and after all of Cyn's "He is another class" waffle, i was almost convinced he would have a stormer against Barca...

But he didn't, he was worse than Diaby...Who i defended...lol.

Get rid of them both.

[Gooner Girl]

It's what I was saying the other day, players like rosicky, nasri and diaby etc just float in and out of games without the consistency of say, fabregas. You never know what you're gonna get. I know rosicky hasn't had a decent run of games but unlike the others he's old enough now that that excuse is getting a bit thin.

One thing I am glad of though is that wenger took defeat gracefully for once and admitted barca the better team. Wouldn't have been to impressed at sour grapes from him today.

[GunnGunn]

I wouldn't have complained if he had a moan about the Ref, but he has respect for Barcelona, a hell of a lot more respect than he does for Manure and Chelsea, and with good reason.

[Gooner Girl]

I think one of the reasons I'm not so gutted as previous years is we didn't go out to an English team which I hate such as manure etc. I don't know any barca fans likely to brag.

[CynicalGooner]

Yes, he did have a shocker, and after all of Cyn's "He is another class" waffle, i was almost convinced he would have a stormer against Barca...

But he didn't, he was worse than Diaby...Who i defended...lol.

Get rid of them both.

Rosicky was poor but Diaby was the worst player on the pitch (except Sylvestre, who I never want to see in an Arsenal shirt again). At least Rosicky was taken off and replaced with someone equally as rubbish, we had to endure 90 mins of Diaby's incompetence.

Anyway I agree with Frody. Yeah they were the better team of 2 depleted sides, and we were severely weakened, much more so than them, but last night was the Messi show. No way we were winning that game. If we had scored 4 he'd have scored 6

[Libertine]

I thought the ref had a shocking game last night.
However, i don't think he unduly affected the result.
Messi was just unplayable last night and was the difference between the teams.
I actually thought we played better last night than we did in the 1st leg.

[StLGooner]

I think what they did best was defend as a team and pressure us on the ball. Even when teams like Bolton do that to us we get a little rattled, the problem with Barca is when they take the ball away from us they're good enough to keep it for long periods of time, especially since we gave them all the time in the world on the ball. Like Goose said earlier, we are a confidence team and we have to get into our passing rythm or we get flustered. They kept us from doing that by sending 3 or 4 players to the ball and cutting off our passing options, they did that to Diaby alot, and he tried to dribble out of them with no success. Wenger should have changed something to counter this, but he didn't. And he should of had our players pressure them, but I'm not so sure he teaches that kind of team defense.

[Rockin' Robin]

I thought the ref had a shocking game last night.
However, i don't think he unduly affected the result.
Messi was just unplayable last night and was the difference between the teams.
I actually thought we played better last night than we did in the 1st leg.

Agree with that, except it's hard to judge for me whether we played better.

The referee didn't make any big game changing decisions, so we can't really blame him.

[GloriousBlue]

WHY Arsenal WHY! do you hate Chelsea that much?! lol! now Arsenal will be concentrating fully on the premier league and arsenal have the easy games! so this means it'll be even harder for Chelsea to win it! anyway I thought it was a brilliant game, felt really sorry for Arsenal. maybe if their best players were there they'd play way better and maybe, just maybe even win. I loved Messi's 3rd goal, it was fantastic!

[gooner90]

i want to see a bit more fire and passion in diaby becuase hes got the ability to run and run at players plus score goals, if he could get his passing and through balls better and bit more passion in there he would be great, thats what he needs to progress more, the 2 legs against barca he didnt look up for it get to em or anything except when he created the goal..... how many times was messi on the floor, once or twice?? i would of expected to see him on the floor more and getting challenged hustled off the ball.... we used to play against ronaldo every season and he only showed up a couple times against us

[StLGooner]

Diaby was poor over those two games, but to be a bit fair he had 3 or 4 players around him almost everytime he got the ball, usually he can dribble away from one oo two of them, like he's use to in the Prem, but he should have been thinking of a quick pass before he even received the ball, he just didn't change his game to the pressure. And then we he did have space he made a few bad choices. I don't think he was a poor as some think (even the commentator said he did some things good), but he needs to learn to adapt mid game and be more versatile, and of course learn when to get rid of the ball, a bit more grit and determination would do him some good as well.

[Inchpräctice]

I think what they did best was defend as a team and pressure us on the ball. Even when teams like Bolton do that to us we get a little rattled.

Yes.

The problem with Barca is when they take the ball away from us they're good enough to keep it for long periods of time, especially since we gave them all the time in the world on the ball. Like Goose said earlier, we are a confidence team and we have to get into our passing rythm or we get flustered.

Definitely.
No rhythm, no Arsenal.

They kept us from doing that by sending 3 or 4 players to the ball and cutting off our passing options, they did that to Diaby alot, and he tried to dribble out of them with no success. Wenger should have changed something to counter this, but he didn't. And he should of had our players pressure them, but I'm not so sure he teaches that kind of team defense.

True.

Diaby made a bad decision which had he got right could've been the second goal. Not that it would've changed much but still.
Rosicky was poor but to be fair to him he was playing through injury and only just scraped through a last minute fitness test after that awful tackle against Wolves.
He never looked like contributing anything and I would've brought on Eboue or Merida earlier.
Certainly not going to think about selling him after a couple of poor games though.

[maslo]

just got back from holiday yday and watched the game there.

i have to admit i went into the pub willing to except the high chance of us getting beat well with all the injuries.
Then we had to bloody score first and get my hopes up!
i thought we were more up for it than the first leg but crucially didn't have the personel to carry that through and punish them.
i thought some of the defendnig that allowed messi in was atrocious but he really is a class act.

they had pretty much their best squad out, ours was batttle worn and already broken.

tbh i can't remmeber that much of the game anymore, just thoguht 4-1 was a little harsh.

[Myrmedus]

4-1 was indeed harsh, it wasn't representative of the game but then that's what class players do - they bury teams regardless of whether it's deserved or not.