WENGER’S FURY
He brands his team naive and average after Messi mauling
ARSENE WENGER tore into his Arsenal team last night after Lionel Messi plunged a dagger through the heart of their Champions League bid.
The Barcelona forward hit two second-half goals to virtually end the Gunners’ hopes of a place in the quarter-finals. And Wenger was unusually critical of his players as he assessed their performance.
He said: ‘Barcelona are a great team, we knew that before the game. We put a lot of energy into the game, but technically we were very average overall.
‘The regret is that once we look like we are dominating the game in the last 15-20 minutes, we give the goal away. Naive, that is what is frustrating. When we
So WHAT do we know about Lionel Messi? Well, he never scores against Petr Cech, and he never scores away from home against English teams in Europe. Turns out there’s a first time for everything. And, unfortunately for Arsenal, a second time, too.
And so, barring a miracle, Arsenal are out at the Champions League last 16 stage, again. It will be six straight years now, once the formalities at the Nou Camp are completed next month.
Not that Arsenal have exactly had the luck of the draw: Barcelona, AC Milan, Bayern Munich in consecutive seasons and Monaco have been the eliminators. Now it will be Barcelona once more.
Yet a pattern as familiar as this is not down to misfortune alone. In the last five years, Arsenal have developed the disturbing habit of losing the first leg by two goals or more. They lost 4-0 in Milan, 3-1 and 2-0 to Bayern Munich, 3-1 to Monaco and now this. It leaves them with an impossible secondleg task, which their heroics in trying to haul the tie back only serve to underline.
In the second leg, Arsenal show what might have been. So expect them to make a game of it in the Nou Camp as they so often do, and to fall just short. They cannot keep playing the second 90 minutes of these matches largely for show. Certainly those heading for the exits before the final whistle looked like they had seen it all before. Arsene Wenger (right) certainly has.
Arsenal did have the better of the opening 30 minutes and Barcelona only really threatened their goal in the moments before half-time.
Yet the visitors found another level in the second half and could have scored five. Luis Suarez hit a post, Neymar had a header brilliantly saved, a Suarez cross flashed across goal, Neymar inches from conversion. Arsenal’s fans think the referee gypped them. He didn’t.
Barcelona’s penalty was a penalty, and the worst that can be said is that Cuneyt Cakir of Turkey missed a blatant piece of play-acting by Jordi Alba when he tried to get olivier Giroud sent off. It wasn’t pleasant to see, but it was hardly game-changing.
The fans thought Barcelona went over too easily, but they do get fouled a lot. There really aren’t too many legal ways of stopping them.
So, when the end came for Arsenal, it was startling in its ferocity. Back to front in a matter of seconds. In and out, like an assassin’s blade. one moment Barcelona were backed into a corner and under pressure, the next, they emerged from the dark alley, whistling. That is how it is with them. That is why they are so brilliant, and so deadly.
Barcelona’s goal was swift, like a stiletto in the ribs. The deed done with such magnificent cruelty, it almost made an artist of the assassin. Arsenal were camped in Barcelona’s penalty area, and hopeful of breaking the deadlock, when the ball was cleared. It fell to Neymar and, almost instantly, onlookers knew Arsenal’s fate was sealed. MSN are the most terrifying initials in sport right now. Messi, Suarez, Neymar. And all had a hand in the goal. Neymar fed Suarez on the left and already Arsenal seemed stretched. There were as many forwards as defenders, but for some reason there seemed more vibrant blue shirts. Suarez slipped it inside to Neymar and most world- class forwards in that position would have shot.
Yet Barcelona have quite the socialist approach to goalscoring. Neymar sensed his team-mate was better placed and gave it up for the little man. Messi even had time to take a touch, delay his shot, and cut inside before finishing smartly past Cech — his first goal against him in seven matches. It was not to be his last.
From there it all unravelled for Arsenal. It could have been two after 77 minutes when Messi found Neymar, whose shot was blocked. The ball fell to Suarez but from close range he hit the near post. Arsenal’s luck did not hold for long after that, though.
There were 83 minutes gone when Per Mertesacker miscontrolled the ball under little pressure, Messi sensing an opportunity. He raced in but was met onlyy byy a wild lunge from Mathieu Flamini, unnecessary and an obvious penalty. He had been on the field 47 seconds and playedyed the man before he played ed any ball. It was deeply unimpressive. Messi stepped up and made it two.
Arsenal were done, and so was this tie. Cech was even forced to pull off an outstanding save from a Neymar header, when Suarez centred in injury time. Had that gone in, Wenger might as well have sent the team he put out against Hull on Saturday, to play in the Nou Camp.
At the start Arsenal’s plan had been to defend like demons, while at the same time somehow finding a way through Barcelona. In the first half at least they got the job right. Not the goal. Marc-Andre ter Stegen did have one save to make and Javier Mascherano tackled Alex oxlade-Chamberlain for his life, but Arsenal could not score.
In terms of containing Barcelona, though, absorbing their pressure, Arsenal did very well. For the first 30 minutes they were on top, their counter-attacks purposeful.
True, the danger was never less than apparent, the tension when Barcelona had the ball around the Arsenal area obvious to all. Yett Arsene Wenger’s side were executing a game plan, and doing so well. Messi’s first involvement of note was a 31stminute header from a Neymar cross. It drifted over, tamely.
By then, Arsenal had forced their best chance of the half. Mesut ozil found Hector Bellerin, whose weak shot was only half cleared and ended up at the feet of oxlade-Chamberlain. He was in a good position but snatched at it, and Ter Stegen saved easily. Better was a counter-attacking break from a Barcelona corner. oxlade-Chamberlain sped away, but at a vital moment took a very heavy touch, allowing Mascherano to see enough of the ball to clip it out of play. The collision that followed was bonejarring and oxlade-Chamberlain did not recover, lasting only five minutes of the second half.
Gradually, Barcelona edged closer to goal. In the 45th minute, Neymar found Messi, who played in Suarez, his shot eluding Cech, before being cleared. The next chance, in injury time, should have seen Barcelona ahead. Dani Alves volleyed a crossfield pass from Sergio Busquets into the six-yard box and Suarez should have done more with a header from close range.
one mistake is all it takes to invite Luis Enrique’s team in, and in the 49th minute, Bellerin almost made it. He was half asleep when Andres Iniesta played the ball in behind him for Neymar. out came Cech to save bravely at his feet. It was all going Cech’s way at that moment. But that is what Messi does. He changes the narrative. There will be no happy endings for Arsenal.
47 seconds after coming on as an 82nd-minute substitute for Francis Coquelin, Mathieu Flamini brought down Lionel Messi to give Barcelona a penalty, which the Argentine converted.