Villarreal Vs Arsenal | C.L QF (1st Leg) 07/04/09

[SE13]

[Fordy]

its just said on ssn that theres only 47 thousand people live in Villarreal and that 20 percent of people who live there are season ticket holders thats mad if you ask me

The owner bought them ten years ago for 250k when they was in lower league and now they made 90 million last season and any season ticket holder who loses his job this year will get a free season ticket for the season after

[Rockin' Robin]

santiago cazorla broke his leg in villareal's 3-0 defeat to almeria so he's obviously not going to play, good news for us.

[Gunner Down Under]

I'd reckon we'll win this match 2-1, what do you reckon?

[whee]

This is going to be one of those tie's that we can put to bed in the first leg if we really unleash on them.

[Rockin' Robin]

I'm gonna go for the optimistic approach and go for 3-0 Arsenal.

[BennisBergkamp]

I think a 2-0 is on the cards.

[arseman]

won't be easy.....I'll be happy with a 1-1 draw...

[Bristol_Gunner]

marcos senna might not play, im going for a hard fought 2-0 to the gunners

[peter_spain]

Well guys, Im a gunner who lives in spain. In my opinion Arsenal must qualify because it's better team than vilarreal, we have to take care with rossi, ex-manutd player, he has great thechnical abilities and is the best player of the team, once cazorla is injured. Marcos senna is another good player but no too much , we have great players and a really good shape now. Pirés will be at the eleven for vilarreal, so...
Vilarreal likes to play touching the ball and waiting the correct chance, if we can steal them ball posession, we'll win the match.
Someone can tell me about new injures??
I think only diaby, eduardo and rosicky are out to face villarreal, right?
PROBABLE LINE-UP?
Could be good to put three midfielders like Man city tie, fab song and denilson, a really strong midfield but if walcott can play probably we must choose two strikers and take out denilson or nasri.

[peter_spain]

sorry, ...if walcott CAN'T play...

[arseman]

Villarreal CF welcome Arsenal FC to El Madrigal for the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarter-final aiming to avenge their semi-final defeat by the English club three seasons ago.

• The Spanish Liga side came within a step of reaching the final in what was a remarkable debut campaign in Europe's élite club competition in 2005/06.

• It proved the narrowest of victories for Arsenal who, leading 1-0 from the first leg in London thanks to Kolo Touré's strike, were indebted to goalkeeper Jens Lehmann for saving the last-minute Juan Román Riquelme penalty that would have taken the tie into extra time.

• Another close contest appears likely this time given Villarreal's unbeaten home record in the competition and their strong previous showings against English opposition – including two goalless draws with Manchester United FC in this season's group stage.

• Arsenal enter the tie as the more experienced European campaigners – this will be their fourth UEFA Champions League quarter-final in six years, and sixth overall – but they won only one of those previous ties, and suffered defeats in their last two away games in the competition.

• Villarreal reached their second UEFA Champions League quarter-final by beating Greek side Panathinaikos FC 3-2 on aggregate in the last 16 (1-1 home, 2-1 away). Prior to that Manuel Pellegrini's men had finished second in Group E with a record of W2 D3 L1.

• Arsenal advanced only after a nerve-shredding shoot-out against their last-16 opponents AS Roma, prevailing 7-6 on penalties after a 1-1 aggregate draw (1-0 home, 0-1 away). Prior to facing Roma, they had taken second place in Group G with a record of W3 D2 L1.

• Villarreal's record against English clubs is: P9 W3 D5 L1.

• At home their record is: P5 W2 D3 L0. In those five past meetings with English opposition at El Madrigal, they conceded just one goal (scored, curiously, by a Spaniard – Everton FC's Mikel Arteta).

• Pellegrini's team met Arsenal for the first time at Highbury on 19 April 2006 for the first leg of that season's semi-final. Touré's 41st-minute goal earned the Premier League side a 1-0 victory.

• The teams reconvened in Spain on 25 April for the goalless second leg – a result which earned Arsenal a 1-0 aggregate victory and a place in their first UEFA Champions League final.

• The full lineups for that second-leg tie at El Madrigal were:
Villarreal: Mariano Barbosa, Javi Venta, Juan Manuel Peña, Quique Álvarez, Rodolfo Arruabarrena (Roger García 82), Juan Román Riquelme, Josico (José María 63), Marcos Senna, Juan Sorín, Diego Forlán, Guillermo Franco.
Arsenal: Jens Lehmann, Emmanuel Eboué, Kolo Touré, Sol Campbell, Mathieu Flamini (Gaël Clichy 9), Gilberto Silva, Aleksandr Hleb, Cesc Fàbregas, Fredrik Ljungberg, José Antonio Reyes (Robert Pirès 69), Thierry Henry.

• A late substitute for Arsenal that evening, Robert Pirès left the London club to join Villarreal at the end of the 2005/06 season and is now in his third campaign with the Spanish side. Pirès was with Arsenal for six seasons during which he won two Premier League titles and two FA Cups. Voted the English Football Writers' Player of the Year in 2002, he made 284 appearances, scoring 84 goals.

• Arsenal went on to lose the 2006 UEFA Champions League final 2-1 against another Spanish outfit, FC Barcelona.

• That was the Gunners' third defeat against opponents from Spain in a UEFA final. They lost 5-4 on penalties to Valencia CF following a goalless draw in the 1979/80 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final and succumbed 2-1 to Real Zaragoza in the final of the same competition in 1994/95.

• Arsenal's overall record against Spanish sides is: W8 D5 L10, with that final meeting against Valencia counted as a draw.

• In Spain, their record is: W2 D2 L6.

• Arsenal were 3-1 losers at Sevilla FC on their most recent visit to Spain for a group-stage fixture on 27 November 2007. Eduardo da Silva opened the scoring for the London club that night but Sevilla hit back through goals from Seydou Keita, Luis Fabiano and Frédéric Kanouté.

• Besides Pirès, another ex-Gunner in the Villarreal squad is Pascal Cygan. The defender made 63 Premier League appearances in his four years at Arsenal.

• Villarreal's Spanish internationals Joan Capdevila, Santi Cazorla and Marcos Senna featured alongside Cesc Fàbregas in Spain's UEFA EURO 2008™-winning team. Forward Guillermo Franco, meanwhile, is a colleague of Arsenal's Carlos Vela in the Mexico squad.

• Villarreal's quarter-final record in the competition is: P1 W1 L0.

• Arsenal's quarter-final record in the competition is: P5 W1 L4.

• Both teams bettered Italian opposition in the 2005/06 quarter-finals, Villarreal ousting FC Internazionale Milano while Arsenal beat Juventus.

• Arsenal's only previous UEFA Champions League quarter-final against Spanish opposition pitted them against Valencia in 2000/01 and ended in an away-goals defeat after a 2-2 aggregate draw.

• AC Milan's semi-final defeat of Manchester United in May 2007 was the last time an English team lost to a foreign opponent in a UEFA Champions League knockout tie.

• The second leg will take place in London on Wednesday 15 April.

• The winning team will meet the winners of the tie between Manchester United and FC Porto in the semi-finals.

© uefa.com

[Inchpräctice]

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archiv ... to-almeria

Pires sees red as Villarreal crash to Almeria

Arsenal have been drawn against the ‘Yellow Submarine’ of Villarreal in the Champions League Quarter Finals. As always, Arsenal.com will be keeping you up to date with the results of the Gunners’ European opponents in our weekly Euro Watch.


Almeria 3-0 Villarreal
Saturday, April 4.
Former Gunner Robert Pires was sent off as Villarreal warmed up for Tuesday night's Champions League clash with Arsenal by losing 3-0 at Almeria.

The Yellow Submarine were completely out of sorts against their mid-table opponents and conceded three times in the first half. Negredo, Piatti and Mane all took advantage of Villarreal's sloppiness to put the result beyond doubt by half-time.

Pires received his second yellow card on the hour mark and things went from bad to worse for Arsenal's next opponents when Santi Cazorla suffered a broken leg which will rule him out for the rest of the season.

Villarreal remain fourth in the Primera Liga, nine points adrift of third-placed Sevilla and just two ahead of Valencia in the race for European places.


[Monday, April 06, 2009]

[BennisBergkamp]

Well guys, Im a gunner who lives in spain. In my opinion Arsenal must qualify because it's better team than vilarreal, we have to take care with rossi, ex-manutd player, he has great thechnical abilities and is the best player of the team, once cazorla is injured. Marcos senna is another good player but no too much , we have great players and a really good shape now. Pirés will be at the eleven for vilarreal, so...
Vilarreal likes to play touching the ball and waiting the correct chance, if we can steal them ball posession, we'll win the match.
Someone can tell me about new injures??
I think only diaby, eduardo and rosicky are out to face villarreal, right?
PROBABLE LINE-UP?
Could be good to put three midfielders like Man city tie, fab song and denilson, a really strong midfield but if walcott can play probably we must choose two strikers and take out denilson or nasri.

RVP probably out too

[chrisbishop69]

i reckon we will loose it 2-1