Arsenal: Ospina, Bellerin, Koscielny, Gabriel, Monreal, Elneny, Flamini, Iwobi, Ozil, Sanchez, Welbeck
Subs: Macey, Mertesacker, Gibbs, Coquelin, Campbell, Walcott, Giroud
In a soaking wet Camp Nou Arsenal made a relatively good stab of things even though the scoreline makes it look worse than it was as we went down 3-1 to three pretty good but not spectacular goals. In the first half we created a few decent half chances with Iwobi looking bright and Ozil as ever pulling the strings but our reckless passing cost us. Then in the second half Elneny got one back for us with a great strike before Suarez and finally Messi inevitably wrapped things up for the Catalan giants, leaving us with Everton on Saturday morning as a must win game, if ever there was one.
Pre Game:
The under pressure Wenger made several changes from the side that crashed out of the FA Cup with surprise starts for Mathieu Flamini and Alex Iwobi, as Danny Welbeck replaced Olivier Giroud up front and Konscielny replaced Per Mertesacker in the centre of defence. Gibbs, Coquelin and Campbell dropped to the subs bench. Not quite a make shift team but one seemingly with an eye looking toward Saturday’s early kick off at Everton.
First Half:
Arsenal started brightly, keeping some good possession in the opening exchanges, with Ozil having a decent crack at goal on the 10 minute mark. Then after a typically barnstorming run from Bellerin down their left hand side the ball fell to Eleny who also tried to have a go from distance, but it came to nothing.
Ospina made a great point blank save after Neymar’s long range ball found Messi one on one in the seven yard box 17 minutes in, though luckily the Colombian was alert to it. But it mattered little, because literally the next minute we lost possession in defence and Neymar was threaded through by Suarez to slot home a deft finish. (1-0)
We almost had a decent chance at breaking after some incredible control and pace from Alexis but the resulting cross from Monreal was weak. Again, as if Wenger’s team talk consisted of “have a pop from range lads”, after a botched corner Flamini had a long range attempt go sailing over the bar. Every time Barcelona came forward though they looked very relaxed and very threatening, and we seemed to be content to lay off the them whilst they were in possession for the most part. It felt like pretty much whenever they wanted to they could pop a ball over our defensive line and create a shooting opportunity from nothing.
In between the standard yellow cards for first Flamini then later Gabriel there was a decent penalty shout when Iwobi’s ankles were clipped from behind by Mascherano but the Russian referee waved on. We had a few half chances from Iwobi and Elneny but Alexis really should’ve at least hit the target when he had a free header in their area only to see the ball bobble wide. We always looked like creating chances but in a similar vein we never looked like converting any of them.
Just before the break, as in on the 44th minute, we swapped Flamini for Coquelin, which seemed odd as the whistle blew seconds later to signal the end of the first half.
Second Half:
We started the half very brightly when Iwobi hit the side netting, but straight after on the 51st minute Elneny got his first ever goal for us with an absolute peach of a strike from the edge of their box. Curled beyond the reached of Ter Stegen right into the top corner, great goal. (1-1)
This seemed to rile up the home team though and on the 56th minute Ospina had to make a smart save to his left from a drilled Messi shot. We should’ve really gone ahead when Danny Welbeck broke on the counter attack and went one on one with the keeper but Mascherano did make a decent last ditch tackle to be fair.
Barca kept coming at us in the following minutes but our defensive shape looked a lot more cohesive than in the first half and we reduced them to mainly huffing and puffing around our area. Again, a free header, this time for Welbeck from an Ozil corner, should’ve at least hit the target but was put well wide. Our wastefulness in front of goal was punished, and how. Suarez scored an absolute belter on the volley from a Dani Alves cross in the 64th minute. It looked on the replays that it may have hit his shin but it went right into the top corner leaving Ospina rooted to the spot. (2-1)
The ever threatening Welbeck came close with a blasted shot that ricocheted off their bar, but Barcelona now were in the ascendency, fizzing the ball round our half with aplomb. On the 73 minute we made a double change of Walcott and Giroud for Iwobi and Welbeck. They responded by taking off Rakitic and putting on Arda Turan. On the 79th minute we had a free kick outside their area that Alexis took and forced a great save from Ter Stegen with, then on the follow up Giroud had a chance blocked then Walcott headered wide.
Then our defence went to sleep again and gave Busquet’s a free header in our area that thankfully he did nothing with. There was another half chance when Walcott was played through by Ozil but he was too far wide and Ter Stegen too quickly off his line to make a decent go of it. But it wouldn’t be Barcelona beating us comfortably without us losing the ball and gifting Messi a chance, which is exactly what happened on the 87th minute as a bit of scrambling and lucky passes resulted in Messi lofting the ball over Ospina into our net. (3-1)
We created another quite good opportunity that Alexis failed to convert before the referee blew his whistle and that was that. On to Everton, then.
Koscienly who’s 30 and so experienced always has one mistake in him. Clear the ball, we can’t afford to concede a stupid goal but gives it away. First game back from injury is no excuse for making a silly mistake like that. Apart from Gabriel giving the ball away so many times, can’t fault any player. We can take a lot of positives from tonight. Elneny, knew he was some player when I first saw him play for us. Iwobi, amazing performance for a 19 year old against Barca away. Lastly, forgot how good Ospina is. Overall thought he played… Read more »
Well played. The lost was certain. It was just a matter of how many goals.
Please win our next game. Put an End to this bad run.
Better football tonight. Good effort from the fans too – great support in the pouring rain. More of that on Saturday and I can see us getting the points
Good performance but too little too late against a Barcelona team that could have gone up a few gears if they needed to
Iwobi, Monreal, Elneny really good, God only knows why Giroud and Walcott came on, Walcott once again laughably inept
I think the physical effects of this game will have quite an impact on the game Saturday also
*Elneny is ace*
Just looking at how Bayern came back tonight and IF the rumours that Pep wanted to come to Arsenal are true, is the Arsenal board choosing not to get him, the biggest mistake ever made. By a football club board?
I think if is the right word
rumours. end of.
Still don’t get the obsession with Pep. This Bayern team is without a doubt worse than the one that Heynckes left him. And Barca are arguably better now than under him.. I’d have enjoyed seeing what he could do, sure, but I’d take Simeone over him in a heartbeat (I’m fully aware he won’t be leaving).
Surely the “Playing against Arsenal” manual starts off with: “Give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves”. Sadly it didn’t take Barcelona to show this…again.
Who knows, maybe on Saturday they’ll pick proper boots – how many times did Arsenal players slip compared to Barcelona players?
The season that had looked so promising has completely gone down the toilet. Same old, same old.
Baffled me why Campbell didn’t even make a sub appearance!
Only bright spark was Elneny’s beautiful debut goal.
Piss poor finishing.
Wonder how many games that has cost us?
Way too many!
It was clearly a game that we lost due to poor finishing and indecisiveness in the final third just like the first leg. We could have scored as many as we conceded. Overall i cannot fault the desire and spirit of the team. They just need to believe.
We could really do with a Podolski in the team at the moment. One of the most clinical players in and around the box we have had for a while
Cost us a fucking league and cup already..
Most capable players (Sanchez and Ozil) underperformed, the most inexperienced ( Iwobi and Elneny) gave it their best shot. Ozil back to the “not interested” body language, Sanchez back to “don’t know what I’m doing” mode.
You have to wonder what a night like tonight might have looked like if only our finishing was even a fraction less woeful. I guess the positives are that we’re creating decent enough chances, but when will we actually start taking them?
Everton will be humbled.
What a relief. I had visions of 6-0 dancing in my head. This wasn’t nearly as horrible as I imagined, and we played pretty well, too.
Depressingly I feel like Barca didn’t even get out of 2nd gear until we scored. That we didn’t lose by a bigger margin is more to do with them, than us.
We played well and still got beaten easily. What’s worse is that if we could ever just take our chances Barca might have been in a position where they started to brick it, having taken the result for granted for the most part.
Give some credit where its due Mate. The team played well, much better then recent outings.
If we play bad its cause we suck, if we play well its cause the opposition allowed it?
Give me a break please.
If Kos hadn’t tried to dribble his way through 3 Barcelona players it would still have been 0-0 who knows how long for but it is this sort of poor decision making that affects us week after week.
They never ever learn to do the simple thing when in trouble.
I wish the lads liked assisting each other as much as they appear to like assisting the opposition
Yep, for all Barca’s ‘wizardry’ their goals were helped by some pretty poor individual errors.
And could also be the reason why they always want to walk the ball into the net.
Had we took our chances?? Overall not disappointed with performance
I would be fucking gutted about the rain. Commiserations to those who travelled.
It was pretty grim. There’s no cover, you get drenched.
Well done Arsenal. Created a lot of good chances against best team on planet. Really liked the energy of Elneny
I was there. In the rain. Elneny and Iwobi were excellent. I thought Welbz played well too. They should all start at Everton.
But just a little more about Iwobi. The lad is so young, yet he didn’t look at all out of place against the best team and many of the best players in the world. I have high hopes. He could be our home grown Messi or Ozil.
Today I watched real men showing some high school team how football should be played. It’s real sad that our players are that average and they have become that uncreative. Its time this summer we exchange some of these crap players for real men and really try to build a champions looking team.
Bendtner?! Really? My troll radar is going all bells and whistles.
We were always going to lose the game. We had chances to score more than one, but didn’t convert them. Story of our season. An excellent goal from Elneny. Overall our passing was not accurate enough and they had the belief and confidence to play to our weaknesses. Koscielny went missing for their first goal. They were always going to score, especially with our defence the way it is at the moment. They showed why they’re the best team in the world at the moment. Hopefully there are no injuries. Let’s get the players home and focus on Everton now.… Read more »
Oh well… Can’t really be surprised or dissapointed with the result over two games.
Welbeck missed an open goal mouth on the weekend, then can’t slip the last defender to get a 1-on-1 with the keeper tonight.
We need better strikers.
Should’ve lobbed the keeper while it was on.
As much as he works hard and is a good athlete, Welbeck is low on footballing ability. I still like him though. I’m in a quandary – I don’t want him to be replaced because I like him, but I think we probably need more quality (maybe that’s Arsene’s problem too?).
But there wasn’t anyone better than what we had in the market no??
Aubamayeng isn’t better than OX and Welbeck much less Giroud. Dybala is overrated, not much of an upgrade over Giroud. Higuaín?? Most overrated striker ever!! Giroud is in the top 6 strikers in the world. Theo and Giroud will score close to 20 in the league. Wenger knows best!!
Trez your like a broken record. Give it a rest son.
Truth hurts…
Ox? I love your optimism mate, but chambo has not done a thing for arsenal in reality. He got a goal back against monaco last year. Would still rather keep him than theo, he’s got more potential.
Also, Aubameyang is better than Giroud at scoring goals.
Giroud is an ok striker but it’s nonsensical to place him in the top 6 strikers in the world. I cringe every time he tries to carry the ball. It always somehow gets stuck under his feet and he looks like someone trying to carry a brick tied to his foot and he waits for the slightest touch from the defenders to fall over. He’s a hard working guy and I like him but he doesn’t belong anywhere near the top 30 strikers in the world.
very pure comment my friend.. cant quite get my head around you comparing aumbamyang to the ox???? and you really do obviously never watch him play… like never. hes a ridiculously good striker who ticks practically all the boxes. dybala isnt over rated because nobody says hes world class yet hes just seen as a very good striker for his age which is exactly what he is… and lastly, im sorry to say but giroud isnt even in the top 6 strikers in the premierleague.. : sturridge aguero lukaku kane costa vardy rooney and ighalo are all better than him… Read more »
We really seem to have three strikers who each give you two of the three main qualities you want in striker, those being, pace, finishing ability, and contribution to buildup play. Walcott has tremendous pace and is a typically good finisher, but there are really long stretches of the game where we might as well have 10 men; just adds nothing to buildup. Giroud can be excellent in buildup play and while he misses a seemingly maddening number of chances his aerial skill and goal numbers are strong. Yet he his so limited in his ability to stretch defenses with… Read more »
Not quite a clip from Mascherano. Hope it was an accident and not an awfully advised dive?
Iwobi’s heel was clipped by Mascherano’s leg / knee. No dive.
But I wouldn’t go so far as to say Mascherano intended it.
Happy for Elneny
This game pretty much sums us up. No quality fire Power up front. Hopefully this will get addressed during the summer otherwise it’s same old again. Season over guys.
Life just keeps spreading our cheeks. Mercilessly giving it to us. When does this end
When things change upstairs.
Said anybody who ever had to face Barca in the Camp Nou ever.
And don’t forgot those powerhouses Swansea and Watford.
The detractors will be out in force now. And yes, there will be some fair points, I myself have for a long time asked again and again what is the point of Theo Walcott. Yes we made mistakes tonight, but we never had a chance. It’s a weird feeling, loosing 3-1 and feeling we got of lucky, and yet I still think despite barca never getting out of a relaxed 2nd gear this was the best performance we’ve put in in weeks. Sometimes you just have to applaud the opposition, barca are everything we wish we were. But weirdly, I… Read more »
Once again, Poor finishing and lack of killer instinct has killed us off. Welbeck for all his great qualities will never be a world class striker. If we had a great striker today, we would’ve scored 3. Elneny was great today and I don’t ever want to see any idiot compare him to Flamini EVER AGAIN. Don’t know what is wrong with our CB, but it’s becoming as bad as our cb. Iwobi was decent and should be ahead of Theo till the end of the season. No bright spots from this game…Barca weren’t at their best and we failed… Read more »
I thought sanchez was much better on the right wing tonight
As soon as he reverted to the left (perhaps slightly to do with Iwobi coming off and Walcott coming on) we looked impotent in attack.
Having said that, Ozil’s face when Sanchez missed that chance near the end (where he dragged it to the left and it went behind for a corner) summed up how I thought about his shooting (as well as everyone else’s bar the goal).
The early, pessimistic, negative comments are a sad reflection of our fanbase at the moment and how we are so eager to rip into the team, the players and Wenger. Partly rightfully so after the shambolic last few weeks but credit where credit is due – I thought we played well tonight. Barcelona are the best team in the world right now and possibly of all time and we went toe for toe. No shame. No disgrace. Well done the lads. ………well except Walcott I’ll give you that! He was his usual woeful self – what on earth has happened… Read more »
Credit where credit is due, Barca are a wonderful team with great players. But they are helped massively by playing in the kind of pub league where they only play 4-6 competitive games a season. Helps them stay in tip top condition. If they had to play against the level of competition we have to every week I think the attritional effects would kick in on them too. It will be interesting to see whether Guardiola is as effective when he comes to manage in a competitive league for the first time next season.
Agreed on the standard of Spanish league football, plus the winter break definitely helps as well. Also agree on Guardiola who has only ever managed the best team by far in the league (Barce and Bayern). We will see the old adage in action – can he do it on a wet and windy night against Stoke?!
Barca rested 5 players and still won 6 nil on the weekend. Arsenal on the other hand played Watford on Sunday, travel so Spain and then to Everton on Saturday noon. Until the English FA give the assistance the Italian, French, Spanish and German FA’s do to their teams making their schedule easier when in the CL. No English teams will dominate. Look at the teams that have won it, all have been lucky. Man Utd 1 – 0 down with 2 mins to go, Liverpool 3 – 0 down at half time, Chelsea park the bus out played and… Read more »
why do we play on Saturday? should be fuckin Monday. Ri-dick-u-louse.
Pretend Arsenal all have the Spanish hangover/flu and get it postponed two days aka Spurs when they cunted fourth place some years back.
Cmon Palace and whoever the Spuds are playing this weekend. Good effort today, bit of balls, Manure, Chelski Man City would have been hammered 6-0. Messi etc are magic, but Suarez is still a tooth fair cunt.
yeah for more than a decade we’re losing to Barca. we lost to barca last week in fa. we’re losing the league to them too. because we have won any other team on planet exept barca. giroud is world class n flamini is better than walcott.
.?
Your comment is exactly what I was talking about. Both this match report and my comment were with regards to tonight’s game and tonight’s game only, yet you have gone on in an angry blast about the last ten years and all our failings!
so are we gonna celeberate for a 3.1 lose to best team on planet? 5.1 agg
see? n thats exactly what we’ve become. celebrating loses n 4th spots…
btw what u said is like saying hitler was a nice person on his last day killing only a few and no one shall say anything to “blast” our dear hitler
So, you are comparing Wenger to Hitler?
Who’s celebrating?!
And now you’re comparing Wenger to Hitler?!! Wow!
Or is it the team you’re comparing Hitler to? I’m confused by your text talk and bad English. Had a couple too many to drown your sorrows and stoke your anger?!
I’d hazard his confidence has been knocked; when he was playing well and scoring earlier in the season Wenger dropped him for Giroud. Then he was injured and came back; started to hit form, scored and was subsequently dropped again. Theo’s always suffered from fragile confidence and this won’t help.
Neither he nor Campbell seem to be able to do right for wrong though at least Campbell is consistently good.
Campbell is consistently good, which is right. Theo is consistently bad, which is wrong.
Iwobi needs to start from now on, also Alexis looks better on the right
Good effort done by a shiner when we had a chance unlucky.
The finishing in this game perfectly summed up our club. Almost, almost there on so many occasions, just not quite enough to get it over the line.
I went into this game not giving a fuck and I still come out disappointed. Watching Arsenal brings is no fun at all these days. *sigh*
I really hope we win on Saturday but then I remember that it’s an early kick-off against Everton all the way up to that shit hole called Liverpool…
THAT chance from Danny when it was 1-1 will haunt me in my dreams tonight. What could’ve been… Oh Arsenal, bloody Arsenal
Something to ponder for next season. Try to put the ball in the back of the net. Try to be switched on in defense. This 2 failings have been woefully highlighted this season for a team that is supposed to be up at the top. A new manager with new direction and determination please.
Allegri or Tuchel for me.
Would add Favre, De Boer and Dennis or convince Jupp Heynckes back to training (pay him in gold and with virgins if possible)
Why exactly would either of those two come to Arsenal, when 1 is manager of a bigger club who generally wins everything in their league (and has better players than Arsenal at the moment) and the other has only just taken over a club with whom he’s going to be managing in the Champions League next season, with a chance to have a go at the league next season?
Well for one we have a bigger transfer budget and of course we could pay them more. Not saying they’ll come, but if the board is serious, they can pull it off.
Look at Juve playing without 3 of their important players and are giving Bayern the game of their lives.
But we’re easily impressed with the glorious defeat nonsense. Don’t care if it was against Barca, we created enough to score 3 if we had a World class striker.
We would’ve at least drawn the first leg with a world class striker.
I totally agree, we’re THE ARSENAL. A defeat shouldn’t be “expected” no matter who the opponents were. Let’s be honest, in the first half the gunners quite easily got into the barca box on many occasions, I don’t see why we couldn’t thrash them with the kind of opportunities we got. Something has got to change in the team’s mentality of settling for “expected” all the time!
With a striker like Benzema or Lewandowski, I think our squad would be among the best 5 in the world…
We’ll at least we don’t have to worry about Barcelona taking any of our players, we are a million miles away from the top table in Europe
That’s the exact reason they’ll gladly poach the remaining stars left at arsenal.
I think “Barcelona” and “the European top” are not the same. (They are 12 point ahead of Real Madrid after all)
Terrible defending. There is far too much responsibility on our centre backs passing it out, that’s why we get caught out so often.
Ozil decided not to defend this game.
Bottom line. We’re out again. Another decent performance when we felt we had nothing to play for. Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome each time. Doesn’t hurt as much any more. I’m used to it.
Alex Iwobi is already 10x the layer Walcott will ever be
A much better performance tonight, I though Monreal Elneny, Ospina, and Iwobi were all very good tonight, overall a decent team performance. No disgrace losing to the best team in the world. Big big game on Sat. Come on boys!
“Ooh we played well.” “No disgrace tonight.” “We went toe to toe with them.” Is this how accepting we’ve become? We are out once again with a whimper. This tie was never close- baca had us at arms length over the entire 180 mins, like a heavyweight holding off a midget. Why do we just accept this is OK? We’ve got Ozil and Sanchez in our team for goodness sake. Sick of it. Make it close, make it competitive. We’ve been awful all season, not a semblance of form. Not easy on the eye either. Worse team under Wenger by… Read more »
Feeling kinda ehhh about the game…. great stuff from Iwobi! Really looking forward to his debut goal which has to come soon, and I hope he gets more prem playing time. At the very least, the fact that he started tonight should give him a boost. Lovely goal from Elneny. I’ve always liked the guy and it’s nice to see him put one away after hacking so many chances wide. Also great play. Sanchez is looking more and more like the man we know and love…. but I’m concerned that he might not be back until next season. Özil is… Read more »
there are no positives to take from this match. give me 2011 arsenal vs barcelona. we have not progressed. pep proved his worth tonight. wenger proved his incompetence. we just roll over and accept that we’re going to lose to barcelona. this is why top players will leave the club. this pathetic acceptance of mediocrity that wenger and the club have fed us for the past decade. people waxing positive on this blog need to wake up.
we gifted them the last goal at the emirates, and the first goal tonight. it is fucking incredulous that the only thing consistent about this arsenal side is that one thing.
Was it just me or did we look worse when Walcott and giroud came on?
Not much to say, this was expected, at least we didnt end up losing 5-0 or some sht like that. Ospina was great, iwobi is a great prospect, we should hire a shooting coach, and ffs whats the point on walcott and is Campbell having an affair with Wenger Daughter or Mistress?
As usual, valiant effort gone all in vain. Arsenal are meisters in giving false hopes each season. Ozil reiterated on how we should take our chances and should be ice cold in front of the goal but that didn’t happen once again. We should really have scored at least one goal in the first half. The goals from Messi, Suarez (whoa!) and Elneny were exquisitely taken. I can’t remember the last time that we scored from outside the box. Iwobi justified his selection into the starting XI with a bold performance. His first touches were good and he is very… Read more »
We HAVE to sign a world class striker this summer. It baffles me how Wenger has gone 4 transfer windows without signing one. Giroud and Welbeck are good strikers they are not world class. They would make perfect subs. I’m even open to signing Zlatan, yes he is old but he is miles ahead of anyone we have and is winner. His wages are high but we can afford them. I would love to bring someone like Morata or Aubameyang but they wouldn’t come to Arsenal. We are simply not as appealing as the top tier European clubs.
Buying A world class striker has become the equivalent of the time the everyone and his dog knew we had to buy a world class goalkeeper before we had Cech. I imagine at the moment, we are at the Sczezney(sorry for murdering his name) stage. Maybe Arsene is waiting for a world class striker to fall on his lap like Cech did instead of going to a club and saying to them, I am here for Higuain. This is £Xm. Go find a replacement. But Arsenal won’t do that. Even though it’s been done to us every year until 2… Read more »
Good Performances alone dont cut it any more, we need results too. and I for one am tired of going out of the champions league at the last 16 stage every year and seeing a faltering title challenge every season. We are like in an on again off again relation ship with a girlfriend that you love but cant seem to make it work kind of relationship with wenger. If you cant make it work move on. some times love alone isnt enough. Try something else.
Wonder if it’s Turan that will be stepping aside when Barca launch that 50 million bid for Ramsey.
Turan’s the exact kind of fucker we could do with at Arsenal. Need more beards at the club.
Last I checked Mr SDB Pep lost badly to Barca in last YEAR’S semi.Please let’s not overhype.Bad loss true but with a lot of encouragement.We are not too far just need a good finisher.
what we need is a MANAGER THAT WILL SIGN A STRIKER! ffs. it’s not like there aren’t strikers out there better than our lot. Lukaku, Higuain, Aubameyang to name a few.
Let’s be honest here guys – for non-goobers we were the uninteresting irrelevant oppo that got pasted…..and in the tie that no neutral was watching as the game of the night was in Munich. That’s where the Wengazidis regime has brought us
The most frustrating team of all time..We truly are an enigma..What other team in the world can play excellent and shit at the same time.