FC Barcelona v Arsenal - Tuesday, March 08, 19:45, SS1

[Anzac]

Nah - Xavi gets my vote as the biggest c*nt - no graciousness from him at all in his post match comments - little pr*ck thinks he's so f*cking superior.

He's the biggest t**t going - how I would've loved to score right at the end, that's all it would've taken, one goal and everything they did wouldn't have mattered after that. The scoreline was tighter then he let on.

Barca progressed by the minimum requirement after playing against 10 men for 1/3 of the game.

 

[goonerwarsh]

For all their artistry Barca also combine this to a very cold & ruthlessness on & off the ball. Even something as simple as ensuring the ball goes dead at the end of an attacking move so they don't get hit on the counter - they don't put in aimless crosses that can be easily defended.

No they really don't. They don't seem to panic at all when they get into that final part of the pitch where we so often run out of ideas. Everything they do seems very deliberate and potent.

With us when teams defend so deep we end up with a hopeful cross into the box that's easily defended. With Barca they seem to have so much movement that you have no idea which way they're going to come through you - though I definitely think they were guilty of overplaying aswell in a few circumtances when they should have scored. Something we're quite often guilty of ourselves.

 

[celestis]

Well we can whinge or we can get even - lets get even .

 

[The Gambler]

I tried to cheer myself up by going through the horses today.

Jack The Soldier (Fontwell 3.30) Yeah!
Marching Orders (Naas 2.15) Oh.
Brilliant Barca (Kempton 5.30) Why am I doing this?

I stopped when I got to King Of The Refs (Naas 3.15)

 

[Y va marquer]

Xavi, post match comments:

"We were superior to them from start to finish.
We imposed our football, we remained totally loyal to our manner of playing – we demonstrated our personality.
'Arsenal barely had a shot on goal and their only goal was scored by our player.
They didn't want the ball and our tempo of play and our intensity was always going to see us through."

That's difficult to take from him.
The sooner we put this behind us the better, I hope the effects of last night do not have a knock-on impact on our performances over the next few games.

We were an non existent force in midfield (apart from Jack) and we offered little in the way of an attacking threat particularly when Robin got sent off but we have to look at how well we defended. It's the only remotely positive aspect of our performance (apart from Wilshere).
That might seem a daft thing to say given that we conceded 3 goals but only the first came about because of a mistake, and not a defender's mistake either.

 

[Kain]

For Cesc, you want to join the team that has two players who grabbed your team-mate (and vice-captain) Robin's throat, and displayed such scandalous antics all match long? **** off quickly this summer then.

You couldn't bring yourself to do your ******* job as captain for fear the Barcelona fans would hate you, Cesc. Where were you when that **** ref sent Robin off? Did you show him how outraged you were? No. That would have been seen as you caring more about Arsenal, than Barcelona, by their fans.

You're not fit for the job. Really, just **** off, I don't care if you were Messi or Zidane, anyone who'd rather be somewhere else than at Arsenal can **** off. Anyone who is interested in ADMIRING (the better team), instead of BECOMING (the better team) and showing spunk, can **** off.

Poor fitness is one thing, but spirit and captaining is another. Wenger will be rueing his decision to play you against your lovers in your love-nest.

:roll: Cesc wanted to win as much as anyone yesterday.

I agree. Cesc was blatantly not fit enough. But it was still worth the risk. Cesc wants to win and has been very professional I think in his approach to our season

The only thing I didn't approve of was cesc in the tunnel before the game walking up and down hugging their players. I appreciate that he knows them all so well but I still think there's a time and place for that after the game and not in the tunnel before such an important game when you're the man meant to be leading our team out to play. If I was an Arsenal player behind watching that, I wouldn't be very happy about it regardless of the situation.

I've got to say, that as much as I hate their arrogance and backhanded approach to some of what they do. The way they make chances and their possession count is something we should definitely be aspiring to. Watching their short game and movement once they are outside the box is really incredible. Time after time we were being cut open and relying on last ditch tackles to save us.

They are always playing on the last man, and they're all making runs to get in behind. If we continue to be this possession based team that we claim to be then Barca have once again showed us how much better we need to get at doing it.

We should definitely take the positives out of last night, and one of them should be learning how much we still need to improve to get to the top level. Playing in games of yesterdays quality should help us achieve that

It’s not exactly a new stance being asked of us though is it ‘learn from this loss on how much we need to improve’ we’ve been there and done that time and again, it’s quite frankly getting old fast.

I don’t agree with all of Sleepers over the top view on Cesc and he clearly has still not cooled down after the disappointment of last night’s loss yet, but Cesc was nowhere to be found first as a player and most of all as a captain.

When RVP was sent off it was little piss-poor form Rosicky getting in the referees face with Robin asking “wtf?” not Fabregas, when Wilshere was down injured and RVP was getting in the Barcelonas faces having Abidal grab him round the throat. Fabregas was the one pulling him away, where was the sticking up for your young mate who’s just been injured or ****ing the tosser that just grabbed your team mate round the throat?

Not being 100% match fit is one thing and Wengers gamble, yet such a half-hearted job at captaining our team is near inexcusable.

 

[outlaw_member]

I would disagree. Technical inferiority was a factor but not as big as other things. We knew if we progressed from this tie it wouldn't be
because we had superior technical ability. The whole world knows they are superior to every other team around based on technique - yet they can still be beaten, or at the very least pushed very hard, by teams who are willing to match or better their appetite, work-rate and organisation. Hercules beat theam in Camp Nou, as did Rubin Kazan. Neither were anywhere near them technically.

Eboue over Sagna yesterday wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference in my opinion because as a team they ran harder than us, recovered from a turnover of possession quicker than us, and maintained better discipline than us. I'm yet to see anyone justify how a team that collectively had so much more of the ball than us could have run so much harder physically. That's a pretty damning combo.

Their forward players and creative players are not just there for ball playing abilities like Rosicky - they can compete too. If you add their superior technical ability to that, the outcome is exacerbated. We can do little about the difference in technical quality, but we couldn't even counter them because we were not making enough off the ball runs into space, and could not win the ball high enough up the pitch.

Rubin and Hercules both won by parking the bus. We were never going to be capable of doing that.

I don't think playing Eboue would have helped much, either, but at the very least we would have one less player who wasn't so shaky on the ball when intensely pressed. The first action Sagna committed in the game was to lose the ball.

They did run more than us which is a surprising statistic, but it all came in the way of positive energy. We might have ran less, but most of it consisted of chasing and tracking which places far greater pressure on the mind. I really don't think we lacked effort. Improved composure and technique would have helped us more, IMO.

 

[AnthonyG]

Don't know about all of that, Kain. When Cesc was pulling numnuts away, he may well have been acting in the best interests of us - think the recent Diaby incident. It's true that Cesc and some others turned away early from RvP's 'talk' with the ref, except Rosicky. But, again, I'm not sure we can draw too much from this. Rosicky is probably lucky he didn't get his marching orders too.

Cesc was crap and he admitted as much.

 

[Clrnc]

Btw just for those who are comparing, Barca fielded a weakened team against Zaragoza at the weekend.

 

[TheCMT]

Nah - Xavi gets my vote as the biggest c*nt - no graciousness from him at all in his post match comments - little pr*ck thinks he's so f*cking superior.

They even teach that at La Masia It must be the part of the program where their DNA is changed from the age of 14.

 

[Kain]

Don't know about all of that, Kain. When Cesc was pulling numnuts away, he may well have been acting in the best interests of us - think the recent Diaby incident. It's true that Cesc and some others turned away early from RvP's 'talk' with the ref, except Rosicky. But, again, I'm not sure we can draw too much from this. Rosicky is probably lucky he didn't get his marching orders too.

Cesc was crap and he admitted as much.

He was standing right there with RVP and Abidal when Abidal grabbed Robin around the throat...

<a class="postlink" href="http://soccertvlive.blogspot.com/2011/03/video-abidal-grabbed-van-persie-neck.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://soccertvlive.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... -neck.html</a>" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Arsenalist has a clip of the red card here...

<a class="postlink" href="http://arsenalist.com/video/?id=xhggjj" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://arsenalist.com/video/?id=xhggjj</a>" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The occasion got to him big time, there have been dodgy choices for captaining Arsenal in the past but never one who would let an opposition player grab a team mate around the throat like that Ant. I won't harp on, just really disappointing on his behalf. Admitting he played a mare is all well and good, yet it's a team game and as captain he’s the fulcrum.

 

[celestis]

I would disagree. Technical inferiority was a factor but not as big as other things. We knew if we progressed from this tie it wouldn't be
because we had superior technical ability. The whole world knows they are superior to every other team around based on technique - yet they can still be beaten, or at the very least pushed very hard, by teams who are willing to match or better their appetite, work-rate and organisation. Hercules beat theam in Camp Nou, as did Rubin Kazan. Neither were anywhere near them technically.

Eboue over Sagna yesterday wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference in my opinion because as a team they ran harder than us, recovered from a turnover of possession quicker than us, and maintained better discipline than us. I'm yet to see anyone justify how a team that collectively had so much more of the ball than us could have run so much harder physically. That's a pretty damning combo.

Their forward players and creative players are not just there for ball playing abilities like Rosicky - they can compete too. If you add their superior technical ability to that, the outcome is exacerbated. We can do little about the difference in technical quality, but we couldn't even counter them because we were not making enough off the ball runs into space, and could not win the ball high enough up the pitch.

Rubin and Hercules both won by parking the bus. We were never going to be capable of doing that.

I don't think playing Eboue would have helped much, either, but at the very least we would have one less player who wasn't so shaky on the ball when intensely pressed. The first action Sagna committed in the game was to lose the ball.

They did run more than us which is a surprising statistic, but it all came in the way of positive energy. We might have ran less, but most of it consisted of chasing and tracking which places far greater pressure on the mind. I really don't think we lacked effort. Improved composure and technique would have helped us more, IMO.

I think Eboue would have made a difference at the start which is important as it sets the tone for the half . Funny things is Eboue is the one player in our side that would actually get look in as back up to Alves , their postioning in the first game was quite similar .

 

[AnthonyG]

the last time i checked it wasnt illegal to have real competition in a sqaud? If a fit chamack cant do better than an unfit van-persie then he should not have been bought. If Wilshere or nasri or even rosicky (all of whom played attacking midfieled) cant adequately fill in for an unfit cesc then that speaks volumes about their supposed quality and the imbalance in the squad.

RvP and Cesc (our two best players in those positions) were deemed fit enough to play, so they did. That's really the end of it.

If Wenger had Cesc on the bench and brings him on late when we are, say, down in the tie, he'd be getting all sorts of grief. I know this because it's happened before - there would be cries of 'if he was fit enough for the bench why didn't he start?' and so on.

 

[AnthonyG]

The occasion got to him big time, there have been dodgy choices for captaining Arsenal in the past but never one who would let an opposition player grab a team mate around the throat like that Ant. I won't harp on, just really disappointing on his behalf. Admitting he played a mare is all well and good, yet it's a team game and as captain he’s the fulcrum.

I see where you are coming from and I like a bit of mongrel too.

Yet, Cesc has been vehemently criticised here for being too petulant and getting in the ref's faces too much, especially waving cards. Not saying you, but many have.

It can be a fine line and I think Cesc is still learning.

 

[outlaw_member]

Whether we win the league title, or not, there are several issues that need addressing over the summer. The first is the composition of our squad. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place, because on the one hand we want to play possession football, but at the same time we also need power within our team to better combat English tactics. As a result, we've ended up building a squad which doesn't quite focus on either technique, or physicality. This is best represented through Diaby and Denilson, the latter being a technical short passer who can complement our possession style when on form, but doesn't have the capability to battle. Whilst the other has the necessary power, but isn't suited to a short passing game. It's the uncertainty in which area we should specialise in, that stops us from truly blossoming at our game. Players like Bendtner, Sagna and Song are further examples of favouring brawn over skill, even though the overall strategy of the team is technique based. Obviously, you need power in your side, but that should only be secondary to technique.

The second is Cesc Fabregas. The single biggest reason why we managed to beat the big European sides in recent years was because of him. For the first time, we had a creative possession specialist, who allowed us to control the ball against superior opponents. This role is now being occupied by Wilshere, but despite his array of skills, he doesn't match the old Fabregas in his ability to maneuver the ball. The aim of moving him higher up the pitch was that we could get him on the ball in dangerous situations, but that relies on the deeper players to bring him into play. Against most sides, Song and Wilshere are more than capable, but in the tougher games, we've ended up wasting Cesc's qualities by stubbornly persisting with him in his changed position. In the big games, you need as much of the ball as you can possibly get, and our best player who allows us to do that is Fabregas. So exiling him in a position which requires others to activate him is poor management. It's not so much that we should change his position, but rather learn to better use him depending on the circumstance. I'm an armchair fan, but even I could see before the game that Fabregas needed to play deep, as we needed as many ball players close to the defence as possible. Keeping him alongside van Persie for the entire time he was on given our nil possession was a huge shame.

 

[NasrisShoelace]

Which is why I like the 1 DM 2 CM 433 that Barca play instead of the 2 deep CMs and an AM 4231.

As for the first part of your post Outlaw, I'd like us to have a good 'footballer' in every position. That doesn't mean Sagna has to be sold, it means Eboue has to be sold and we bring in a better attacking RB. Diaby is rubbish full stop, so too Bendtner, so they can go.

 

[celestis]

The occasion got to him big time, there have been dodgy choices for captaining Arsenal in the past but never one who would let an opposition player grab a team mate around the throat like that Ant. I won't harp on, just really disappointing on his behalf. Admitting he played a mare is all well and good, yet it's a team game and as captain he’s the fulcrum.

I see where you are coming from and I like a bit of mongrel too.

Yet, Cesc has been vehemently criticised here for being too petulant and getting in the ref's faces too much, especially waving cards. Not saying you, but many have.

It can be a fine line and I think Cesc is still learning.

Well thats right dammned if you do and dammned if you don't .

 

[outlaw_member]

I prefer the inverted pyramid as well, because it doesn't isolate any one of the three midfielders, as can often be the case with a triangular setup. Özil is another AM who was easily nullified when he played against Spain and Barcelona, because he couldn't get the ball from those behind him.

 

[The Sleeper]

I don’t agree with all of Sleepers over the top view on Cesc and he clearly has still not cooled down after the disappointment of last night’s loss yet, but Cesc was nowhere to be found first as a player and most of all as a captain.

You're right. I've been OTT. I think I'm cool one moment and then the memory of the way we lost sparks me up again and I want to vent. It's not the loss itself. It's the manner that was so shameful.

It's wrong to pick on one, and I guess Cesc is an easy target. There might be other reasons why he wasn't up to the job as captain yesterday. The backheel was forgiven quickly, others have made that mistake too. His performance as a player as well, since he obviously wasn't fit to start. His total lack of presence as captain will take a bit longer.

 

[celestis]

Whether we win the league title, or not, there are several issues that need addressing over the summer. The first is the composition of our squad. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place, because on the one hand we want to play possession football, but at the same time we also need power within our team to better combat English tactics. As a result, we've ended up building a squad which doesn't quite focus on either technique, or physicality. This is best represented through Diaby and Denilson, the latter being a technical short passer who can complement our possession style when on form, but doesn't have the capability to battle. Whilst the other has the necessary power, but isn't suited to a short passing game. It's the uncertainty in which area we should specialise in, that stops us from truly blossoming at our game. Players like Bendtner, Sagna and Song are further examples of favouring brawn over skill, even though the overall strategy of the team is technique based. Obviously, you need power in your side, but that should only be secondary to technique.

The second is Cesc Fabregas. The single biggest reason why we managed to beat the big European sides in recent years was because of him. For the first time, we had a creative possession specialist, who allowed us to control the ball against superior opponents. This role is now being occupied by Wilshere, but despite his array of skills, he doesn't match the old Fabregas in his ability to maneuver the ball. The aim of moving him higher up the pitch was that we could get him on the ball in dangerous situations, but that relies on the deeper players to bring him into play. Against most sides, Song and Wilshere are more than capable, but in the tougher games, we've ended up wasting Cesc's qualities by stubbornly persisting with him in his changed position. In the big games, you need as much of the ball as you could possibly get, and our best player who allows us to do that is Fabregas. So exiling him in a position which requires others to activate him is poor management. It's not so much that we should change his position, but rather learn to better use him depending on the circumstance. I'm an armchair fan, but even I could see before the game that Fabregas needed to play deep, as we needed as many ball players close to the defence as possible. Keeping him alongside van Persie for the entire time he was on given our nil possession was a huge shame.

I agree that we have a fair few compormises in the team as a result we had a few of our players wanting to play out and the other hoofing it .
I understand now I reckon why Wenger buys younger players much easier to ingrain in to them a style of play , because when under extreme pressure players revert to their natural instinct .