Wenger on a mission to foil Barca’s three kings
‘WE CAN BEAT MESSI & CO’
WHEN the teams line up at the Emirates before the nerve-inducing Champions League anthem begins, the television cameras will pause a split second longer on the faces of three celebrated Barcelona players.
FIFA world player of the year Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar have scored an incredible 91 times between them this season. Arsenal’s triumvirate of Olivier Giroud, Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil have 34.
Barcelona, the five-time European champions, are in London to defend the trophy they lifted when they beat Massimiliano Allegri’s Juventus 3-1 at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium last June.
‘You don’t win the Champions League and lead La Liga by eight points from Atletico Madrid and nine from Real Madrid by coincidence,’ said Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.
‘They are top, top quality, the super favourites. They are the best team in the world, nobody questions that. But in football we played Hull on Saturday and it was 0-0 and we went to Sheffield Wednesday and lost 3-0. It can work the other way around.’
There is a menace about this Barcelona team, taken to new heights under impressive coach Luis Enrique with a 32- game unbeaten run stretching back to a 2-1 defeat at Sevilla on October 3.
The front three are in rude health, regarded by many as the most potent attacking threat in the history of the Champions League. To them, Arsenal are just another team in their sights.
Even Wenger, after all these years managing at the highest level, accepts the possibility that it could all come together for Messi, Suarez and Neymar in one jawdropping Champions League performance.
‘Of course it can happen,’ admitted Arsenal’s manager after he had taken the final ses- sion at their London Colney training centre yesterday. ‘It’s quite funny because the one year we beat them (2011), they played us off the park. It can happen.’
There is a temptation to play for a goalless draw, to somehow stifle the threat of Barcelona’s trio and hope to hit Enrique’s team on the break when Arsenal travel to the Nou Camp on March 16.
The last team to stop Barcelona scoring was Espanyol in the derby when they travelled to the Power8 Stadium on January 2 and drew 0-0. Since then, Barca have scored 46 goals.
Wenger added: ‘ Many times I’ve said the away goals rule should be suppressed because if you concede at home in the Champions League it’s a knife in your heart.
‘Against big teams it becomes very difficult when you concede. I am more concerned about stopping them scoring because even if we draw 0-0 at home in the Champions League it is not a bad score.
‘Recently we have made it difficult for ourselves by conceding goals at home. The rules of the modern European Cup encourage you to defend at home and attack away.
‘It is against my nature to play for a 0-0 because I don’t believe you can say you are a big club and just want to defend.
‘To give yourself no chance to score against them is guilty as well.’ It is six years since Arsenal last reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and it will take an extraordinary effort to beat Barcelona over two legs. So much has changed at these two clubs in the decade since they met in the final at the Stade de France. Ten-man Arsenal were beaten 2-1 by Juliano Belletti’s goal.
‘The dif- ference is that Barcelona have spent much more money than we have, it’s as simple as that,’ said Wenger.
‘For Real and Barcelona, because of the dimension of the two clubs, it is historical, not only financial. But I believe financially English clubs can compete with them. If they wanted to buy Neymar they could.’
This evening the Brazilian will be walking out at the Emirates wearing Barcelona’s red and blue.
On the opposite side of the pitch former Barcelona winger Sanchez will be motoring up and down the left wing, eager to please again during a patchy second season in north London.
‘Alexis can help us win the game, but sometimes when you play your former club you are not always in that zone,’ said Wenger.
‘We need a top-level performance where everyone is spot-on. If everyone does that then maybe Alexis can make the difference, but it’s not especially on him. We need all our players to perform at the top level.’
Even then, there is no getting away from that front three.