Arsenal 2 – Barcelona 1: Late Comeback Gives Gunners Legitimate Chance at Going Through (+ Player Ratings)
By: Martin | February 16th, 2011
I will not lie to you. Going into this match, my heart was saying we had a real chance, but my head just couldn’t forget about last year’s tie, and I was really afraid we might get battered. Isn’t it fantastic when the heart wins out? Victoria concordia crescit.
I honestly don’t really know where to begin. I just finished watching the match, and I haven’t really organized my thoughts. In the 75th minute I was already mentally preparing what I would write in this recap — brave effort, not a terrible result, good atmosphere, good performance by the young players, no shame in losing to the best team in the world, now we can focus on the domestic competitions, etc. But frakking hell — a van Persie miracle goal and a very composed finish from super-sub Andrey Arshavin turned the match on its head and now I don’t even know what to say.
I guess my overall takeaway point would be that tonight was a vision of what we can be. Maybe we’re not there yet, and it won’t always be this good, of course. But all the problems Arsenal have had faded away tonight, and for one perfect evening, everything fell into place, and Arsenal FC were the club we want it to be and what it is at our very best. Great atmosphere at the ground? Usually not, but it was tonight (see video below). Shaky goalkeeper? We’ve had that in the past, but Wojo is excellent and getting better, and had a good night. Blowing a late lead? It’s our bugaboo, but tonight we’re the ones who came from behind and took the match. Mental weakness? Nope — we were absolutely fearless tonight and had a great attitude all match.
And maybe, just maybe, tonight’s the night where we saw a glimpse of all of Wenger’s promises coming to fruition. Wenger steered us through a very tough financial period when we moved into the Emirates, and while we haven’t won any trophies there yet, we haven’t dropped out of the top 4, and have gone from one of England’s bigger sides to one of the biggest sides in all of Europe. You’ve heard me say it before, and I will say it again — Wenger has never gotten, and probably will never get, enough credit for what he’s done the last 6 years. That some fans actually have called for his job boggles my mind.
But look at that lineup tonight, as compared with last year. We were better or equal at every position than we were in the second leg last season. Szczesny was massive tonight — he came on a free transfer, and is one of the top young keepers in the world. Huge improvement over last year. Let’s say Clichy was about the same as last year — he came to Arsenal for £250,000. Eboue is our back-up, of course, but a solid guy as far as back-ups go, and he, too, came in on a free. Djourou was good again, and a big improvement over Disastre, of course — another free. Koscielny is a newcomer — after a few rough games at the start, he’s really come into his own, and was massive tonight — he cost us about £10 million.
In midfield, Wilshere wasn’t around last year, he’s an academy product so he didn’t cost anything. Alex Song has improved, he wasn’t around for the second leg last year, either — he cost us £1 million. Cesc was hurt for the second leg last year, and is our heart and soul, he came over for free. Theo cost £12 million from Southampton, and continues to improve. Nasri has had a breakthrough year, and cost £13 million. And Robin is in the form of his life, and ran us less than £3 million.
So everyone on the team was either as good as if not better than their counterpart in the second leg last season. And that entire starting XI’s cost? £39 million. In other words, our entire starting XI which just beat Barcelona cost slightly more than Andy Carroll. Let that sink in. For all the times people have gotten frustrated and said that Wenger needed to back up the truck and spend big to improve this team, he was the one saying he didn’t, that we had the players, that our players were developing and would keep getting better, and were capable of winning things without big-money signings. We just needed to be patient, he told us. Based on tonight’s evidence, at least, he was absolutely right. And I, for one, am so glad that we have a boss who has the courage of his own convictions to do what he thinks is the right thing, not the popular thing. He has to feel vindicated tonight, and rightfully so. Because I really do think tonight was the best illustration we’ve had yet of what this club is capable of being.
But, to be clear, we didn’t actually win anything. It was only one game. And I still think Barca are favorites to go through. So while I am very excited by this result, let’s not treat this like it was the CL final, because it wasn’t. We still have a lot of work to do in the second leg — Barca destroyed us there last season, and will feel confident that they could do it again. Hopefully this match will have given our players the psychological strength to believe they have what it takes this year. Because a draw sends us through, as does a 1-goal loss if we can get at least 2 goals.
And let’s not forget that Arsenal do have a history of pulling out some big away results in the Champions League — the first English team to defeat (then-defending European champs) AC Milan at the San Siro, and I believe the first team to defeat Real Madrid at the Bernebeu (tail end of the Galacticos era). But we don’t have to do that, we just need a draw or a close, high-scoring loss. We’re in with a shout, and the players will feel they can do it. If nothing else we’ve certainly set up an exciting return leg.
And while I’m on cloud 9, I’m sure you’re all on cloud 9, and the players are on could 9, and rightfully so, Wenger will have his hands full trying to re-focus the players. Because here’s the thing — winning this match, as great as it was, didn’t satisfy me in the least. If anything, it just made me want trophies even more, because it reminded me of how great a big win feels and how good we are capable of being. There’s the Carling Cup final, of course, but dammit, we can win more than that — if we can play like we did tonight, we’re much better than Manchester United, and we can win the league. We can win the FA Cup. And if we can get past Barcelona, who is there left in the Champions League that we can’t beat? Fuck it — why not us?
But the only way we’re going to have that end to the season we all want is to focus on each game as it comes. Which means that the players need to put their heads down, train hard, and treat Leyton Orient like THEY were the best team in the world. We need to keep that intensity level up and keep this momentum going. There’s an obvious tendency to have a let-down after a big, high-profile match like this, having to turn around play a lower-division side in a cup competition, but we can’t have that right now. Let’s press on and give everyone something to talk about, eh?
Anyway, as for the match itself, I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t go into too terribly much detail like I normally do. This post is going to be a novella as it is, and I’m sure you’ve either watched the match or read a blow-by-blow recap elsewhere. So this will be pretty quick and dirty.
Arsenal started brightly, I thought, and had the first two good chances. We had a set piece which bounced in the box very early, and if Song had reacted quicker he could have gotten a foot to it and maybe put it in, but he was pretty slow to react. van Persie shot from a tough angle but it was well-saved. Then Barca had a golden chance to go up 1-0 early. Messi got put through on goal, drew Wojo out wide, waited for Wojo to go to ground, and then chipped Wojo beautifully — the only problem was that he put it inches wide. Big, big let-off for Arsenal.
But Barcelona did make it 1-0 in the 26th minute. Messi put a beautiful through ball into the path of David Villa, who timed his run perfectly and was played onside by a napping Clichy. Villa coolly finished past a helpless Wojo to make it 1-0. And you just had the feeling that that was going to be it for Arsenal, and the wind was going to come out of our sails.
But it didn’t really. We kept fighting, kept working and put in a pretty good shift for the rest of the half, and went in 1-0. Barca very nearly doubled their lead in the 68th minute, when Messi put the ball in the back of the net, but the flag went up for offside. It was kind of weird — he didn’t complain too much, and the tv didn’t show more than one replay or talk about it very much, but I think it was as close an offside call as you’ll ever see. It looked like his feet may have been behind or even but he may have just been leaning offside. I’m generally of the opinion that those close calls go to the attacking team, and the goal should have stood, but it didn’t and we caught a break. If nothing else, this is another exhibit in the “Referees are NOT against Arsenal” file. It won’t stop some fans from claiming it, of course, but that’s two matches in a row when we’ve benefited from official’s calls (the non-penalty call against Wolves being the other).
There were a few other chances here and there in the early part of the first-half, but nothing that came that close. But then the substitutions came, and it pushed us on. It showed Wenger’s intent — not sure what other option he had, but he rolled the dice by going all in with attackers, knowing that losing 1-0 at home would effectively eliminate us from the tie. Arshavin came on for Song, and Bendtner came on for Walcott. And it made the difference.
We knotted it up in the 78th minute on a super goal. Arshavin did well to hold the ball up on the left flank, played it back to Clichy, who had acres of space, and put in a great ball over the top to an onrunning van Persie. van Persie got to it, but it looked like it would come to nothing because he had a seemingly impossible angle. Fortunately for him, Victor Valdes definitely thought it was an impossible angle, and “cheated” by moving away from the post to be able to claim or punch the inevitable cross. But instead, van Persie just lashed the ball between Valdes and the near post and somehow threaded it into the goal, which was pretty remarkable given he was nearly at the touchline. It was a great goal, but made possible by poor keeping — a keeper should never ever get beaten at his post like that, that’s goalkeeping 101. And if you watch the video, you’ll never see a purer “oh, I just fucked up” expression on a player’s face than Valdes when that ball went into the net.
It was 1-1, and the celebration was brilliant. I didn’t really know what van Persie’s gestures meant — at first it looked like he was playing some sort of running version of charades, using his finger as a sort of fishhook in his cheek, then flapping his arms around. But then, eventually, he ran to Wenger and gave him a big hug — a nice gesture from Robbie to the manager who has always kept faith in him.
The players got an extra spring in their step, and the crowd was backing them 100%. Barca was clearly on the back foot, and you could tell this was a position they were not used to. And we took advantage of it. It was a breathtaking counterattack. Jack played the ball to Cesc, whose spin, swivel, and long pass, all in one fluid motion, was exceptional — it probably won’t get talked about too much, and Cesc doesn’t get too many chances to direct a counterattack because we usually have the ball and he has to pick apart a tightly-packed defense, but that pass was reminiscent of Kaka or Zidane. Anyway, long ball played inch-perfect to a breaking Nasri, who controlled it into the edge of the box, waited for the Barca’s rushing defenders to get back, and picked up Andrey Arshavin on the other side of the box unmarked, who placed the shot beautifully inside the far post. A beautiful goal, going up 2-1.
His celebration was also either a striking example of egomania or a brilliant piece of meta-commentary. Arshavin pulled his Arsenal shirt over his head to reveal a t-shirt with a message on it. Nothing revolutionary about that, of course. But it’s what was on the shirt that was so remarkable. The shirt was emblazoned with what appeared to be a picture of Arshavin celebrating a goal. You figure it out. But someone should start marketing those shirts.
But that wasn’t just it. Barca stepped up at the end and put Arsenal under some pressure — Wojo had to make a few saves, we had to make some clearances, and then Arshavin very nearly conceded a penalty, when he inexplicably missed a header and allowed the ball to hit his hand on a long ball into the box. Fortunately the arm was away from his body on the other side of the referee, so the ref didn’t see it. We held on to win 2-1. Historic win — the first time Arsenal has beaten Barcelona, the biggest win we’ve had in the Champions League in several seasons, and a legitimate chance to go through in a tie where no one gave us much of a chance.
Also, a final note — fantastic frakking atmosphere at the Emirates tonight — probably the best for several seasons. Watch this and get some goosebumps:
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Would be fantastic if we could replicate that on a regular basis, think it really lifted the players a lot. If you’re reading this and you were at the match, well, tip of the hat to you.
Finally, just a general word about the atmosphere about this match. Especially considering the events of last summer, I thought the whole affair today went very well. Players were certainly respectful, managers were very classy and respectful to one another, hopefully most Arsenal fans have been gracious in victory, almost all of the Barca fans I’ve heard from online have been gracious and classy in defeat. Bundle that in with the exciting nature of the match, and this was a reminder to me of not only how great football can be, but also how nice it is to write this blog and interact with commenters/other bloggers/people on twitter. So cheers for that.
Anyway, Barca return leg in 3 weeks. We need to put that out of our minds, because we’ve got an important cup tie, a cup final, and some very important league matches that give us a real chance to close the gap on Manchester United. We’ll give you coverage of the Leyton Orient match on Sunday, and various crap that pops up between now and then.
On to the ratings:
Szczesny 7.5 I mentioned this several times in this space and on Twitter, but in the build-up to this match, I was really surprised at how many Barca fans and casual observers were saying that goalkeeper was a major weakness for Arsenal. I kept saying that our goalkeeper play was orders of magnitude better than it was last season, and that we weren’t worried a bit about Wojo. He made his Premiership debut against United at Old Trafford and didn’t bat an eyelash, and makes his Champions League debut against Barcelona and is as cool as the other side of the pillow. Wasn’t at fault for Villa’s goal, and played Messi’s near goal as well as he could have. Did everything else right, and was completely assured. His celebration for the second goal was amazing, too — left no doubt that this guy is all in, heart and soul. There have been all the people saying that he’s “our Casillas” for a couple of years now and I have tried to remain calm and not crown him before he’s earned it, but it’s hard not to see him as our # 1 for the foreseeable future at this point. Very assured performance.
Eboue 7 He was pretty much everyone’s big worry coming into this match, and we thought we were going to be really vulnerable. Eboue has been pretty dreadful in most of his appearances this season, but he stepped up big-time today. Not that he was fantastic, but he was very solid — very few of Barca’s attacking moves went through the left, and he got forward and supported Walcott well, even if he didn’t really provide much of anything in the way of end product.
Clichy 6.5 Clichy, on the other hand, was pretty dreadful for almost all of the match, I thought. Giving the ball away, leaving us vulnerable down our left flank time after time, Barca really seemed to be targeting us down the right. Really worrying, and for most of the match I was saying “wish we had played Gibbs.” But then he redeemed himself with a very good assist on van Persie’s goal. Very mixed performance.
Koscielny 8 His recovery pace and anticipation saved us on more than one occasion. Didn’t shrink from the occasion and dealt with the pressure well. Nice to see him getting some recognition, as he has really grown into an excellent defender over the course of this season. Looks like another very good buy for Wenger.
Djourou 7.5 Also very good, as usual. Good in the air, held his position well, and didn’t look scared of Barca at all. I guess we’ll have to see if he can stay healthy for the rest of the season before we take stock, but he really has been one of the Premiership’s best defenders this season.
Song 6 I said if we were to have any chance of beating Barca in this match, Song would be the key man. We did, and he wasn’t, so the lesson, as always, is that I don’t know what I’m talking about. He picked up a yellow very early, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone in watching him get whistled for foul and foul, and give his vigorous dissent to the referee, that a second yellow may have been coming for him, given the touchiness of UEFA referees. But he managed to stay on, although he never really settled into the match — had some good takeaways and certainly wasn’t bad, but was overshadowed by Wilshere on the day. Can improve for the second leg. Speaking of Wilshere…
Wilshere 9 Man of the Match. Jack, you little frakking hero, you. If I could I would have reached through the tv and kissed you. Absolutely fantastic. His passing was flawless, his positioning was perfect, and time after time he got the ball in his own end under pressure and managed to pivot away from the pressure and move the ball forward. Didn’t set a foot wrong all match. Tremendous performance, period, let alone from a 19 year-old playing against Barcelona. Not that he hasn’t been great all season, but all I could think was “tonight’s the night Jack grew up.” And that made me think of “Swingers,” so I’ll leave it to Vince Vaughn to summarize how I feel about Jack’s performance:
After tonight, I don’t think there’s any doubt our little boy is “all grows up.” Again — it is absolutely astonishing to me that 6 months ago, many if not most Arsenal fans wanted to see him go out on loan for the year b/c they didn’t think he was ready and wouldn’t get much playing time (for the record, I wasn’t among that camp, but I had absolutely no idea he would get this good this fast). I see many Barca fans have already started in with the “forget Fabregas, let’s go in for Wilshere” stuff. Sorry, folks — London boy, with the team since the age of 9, he’s got Arsenal in his DNA.
You know something that really jumped out at me about Jack tonight that I don’t know that I’d ever fully appreciated before? Watch Jack’s head when we don’t have the ball. It’s like he’s a lighthouse in a red shirt — he is always looking around him making sure he knows where everyone is, and that’s a big reason why he never loses track of his man and doesn’t get caught ball-watching. Extraordinary awareness and wherewithall from a player his age.
Cesc 7.5 Not his best game, but provided a lot of leadership and solid play through the middle. And again, I would direct you to his fantastic out pass to Nasri on the winning goal, which was top-class. Also, he said all the right things afterward, saying that while we’re happy with this, it’s only halfway done and this means nothing if we don’t get the result we need at Camp Nou. While I don’t think that’s entirely true, it’s the mentality I want the players to have.
Also, I know I have tried to avoid it, but just briefly, his pre-match program notes (where he noted that many of his Barca friends hadn’t won anything when they were his age, and that things change quickly if you’re just patient, which seemed to be a pretty solid endorsement of Arsenal’s player policy and growth), combined with this, leave me with the impression that he’ll be back next season. He hasn’t had to completely carry the team like he has in past seasons, the team is winning big matches and hopefully trophies, and he sees promising young players virtually everywhere he looks around him. I think he now sees that Arsenal are on the cusp of great things, and wants to be a part of it. (And that’s not even mentioning the factors on the Barca side why the move might not happen, and there’s plenty of those as well).
Theo 6.5 Not his best game, although his pace did trouble Barcelona. If there’s any take away point from tonight’s match as to any achilles heel Barca may have, it’s that they’re actually not that fast in recovering, and they are susceptible to being hit with pace if we can manage to get the ball behind them. And Theo is one of the best in the world at offering that threat, perhaps that’s why Messi made those comments about them being scared of Theo. If we are to get the result we need in Barcelona, Theo will be crucial.
Nasri 7 I actually thought Nasri was pretty mediocre tonight, and it was pretty apparent that he was short of match sharpness. But worked hard, put in a good shift, and apparently didn’t aggravate his hamstring injury at all. And then showed superb awareness to pick out Arshavin with a great pass to assist on the winner. So glad to have him back.
van Persie 8 You know what? I know he took some errant shots, but what this team needs is someone who’s not always looking to pass the ball into the net, someone willing to shoot when he gets the ball in a dangerous position. Especially in the form he’s in, if he thinks he’s got a shot, I’m all for him letting some shots rip. And it finally paid off with the first goal. And there’s no doubt he meant it — if you watch it again he takes a peek at the keeper a couple of steps before getting to the ball, and he just let it rip. He also worked very, very hard at pressing high up the pitch.
Arshavin 8.5 Held it up well before playing it back to Clichy on the first goal — would have gotten an assist in hockey for that. And then superb finish on the winning goal.
You all know I’ve been critical of Arshavin in the past, and I stand by all of it. But in the past weeks I’ve been praising him a lot, because ever since he got dropped out of the starting XI he’s been working his tail off and we knew it was a matter of time before he got a goal, and it could scarcely have come in a bigger spot. And it was a great goal, too.
Weird postscript, though — anyone else notice that he immediately went off the pitch and into the tunnel after the match? You would have thought after a match like that, where he scores what was possibly the biggest goal of his career, he would want to celebrate with teammates or soak up the adulation and atmosphere in the crowd. We don’t know the circumstances, so we shouldn’t read too much into it, but it is suspicious.
Bendtner 6 Ran around a lot, helped Arshavin celebrate. Didn’t really contribute much else, though.
Well, that’s it. Fantastic night. I love this team. Back tomorrow with more. Sorry for all the words, I couldn’t stop writing about this one.
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