review- barcelona vs arsenal second leg

So the wait was finally over! The match everyone had been waiting for, the second leg of the battle of the sides famed for their passing abilities.A highly interesting match followed that had a lot of contentious decisions from the match officials and certainly lived upto all expectations with the spanish giants walking away with all the spoils in a match, which they controlled right from the off and deserved to go through to the final 8!

okay so into the team news then and Pep Guardiola had to make do with a very makeshift central defence due to both puyol(*injury*) and pique(*suspended*) not being available for selection. Victor Valdes started out b/w the sticks with alves, busquets, abidal and adriano in defence. Mascherano took up the holding mids position with xavi(*captain*) and iniesta in front of him. Messi, Villa and Pedro made up the front 3. It was an almost regular starting XI for barcelona who just had the issues in defence to deal with before the match and i must say the back 4 did a very good job against arsenal's attack!

Arsene wenger had to do without the pacey Walcott and Alex song for this one and was very happy to atleast have captain Cesc fabregas and Van persie back into the squad. Both were a doubt before the match but managed to recover from their respective injuries and made it back into the squad just in time. Szczesny started out as goal keeper and Sagna, Koscielny, Djorou and Clichy were the defence. Diaby was charged with having to hold the mid together and Wilshire and Fabregas were in midfield....Rosicky, V.persie and Nasri were up front!.

The home side, as expected of them, started off very well with pedro going through on goal in the 3rd min and it took a very good challenge from koscielny to deny him an early goal. Barca kept possession very very well during the whole of the match but were wasteful in front of goal. The stats did however still show their dominance, maintaining around 70% of the possession throughout the entire game. The fullbacks were continuously looking forward and seemed to be more like genuine wingers rather than defenders. Adriano in particular was a constant threat to the arsenal defence and sagna just didn know how to deal with him at times!

Arsenal played a different game as to what they did in the first leg. 2 weeks ago at the emirates they chased down every barca pass like crazy and did not let the catalans get a proper grip on their passing game which we all know they execute so wonderfully. A high back line was also avoided due to the danger of over-the-top through passes and at times, due to barcas full-backs pressing so hard, nasri and rosicky were slotting back in defence creating a sort of back 6. 

messi celebrates scoring his penalty with his team mates

Barcelona were quite good at keeping the ball and pressed relentlessly whenever arsenal had the ball. In fact the londeners were not even being able to put together a move of around 5 passes! Everytime they got the ball, their was always pressure on the man in possession and no-one really looked calm enough to keep the moves going. The defending though i must say was pretty good from them for around the first 40 min and they managed to keep barca out of their penalty box by not allowing any space for passes into the box. This was forcing xavi and iniesta, the two pivots around which all their attacks rotate, to play more passes square rather than into the path of the strikers for a run on goal!.

Arsenal had another problem to deal with around the quarter hour mark when following a smashed freekick from alves, szcsesny collected the ball and rolled it out of play instantly signalling that something was troubling his finger. As the replay suggested, the ball had hit the polish keeper's finger head on and it bent back which is certainly very painful! Manuel almunia was brought on who last year was just a spectator as messi scored 4 past him and single-handedly won barca that fixture. Arsenal have revealed that szczesny dislocated his finger which means out for the rest of the season!

And it was that man messi again who turned out to be the tormentor of arsenal in the 47th min. Up till that point arsenal had defended very well and had kept out barcelonas attack but a mistake from the 1 person in that team you would never expect to make it, cesc fabregas, changed the whole scene of the game!

Arsenal managed to barely clear their lines following a barca attack and the ball dropped to fab who, on th outside of his own box, tried a back-heeled pass to wilshire! An amazing mistake from the spaniard and the ball dropped to iniesta who after going past 3 players, produced a SPECTACULAR chipped through ball for messi. The argentine took it in his stride with 1 touch, over the advancing almunia with the next touch and volleyed it in for a goal. Brilliant skill from the world's best player though fabregas has to take the blame for it!

SECOND HALF

The second 45 started pretty much the same with barca dominating! That however seemed to go against what took place in the 53rd min

Nasri did brilliantly down the left hand flank to get a corner. The frenchman took it himself and his delivery looked delicious and produced an unlikely goal! Sergio busquets headed the ball into his own net! They clearly missed the presence of the poyul and pique in the box and that corned showed exactly why!

At the other end messi produced a good through ball to put villa through on goal put the spaniard was wasteful and almunia came out and claimed the ball. It was certainly an off night for villa who just couldn get his finishing going!

Van persie was sent off on a second yellow in one of the most bizarre decisions you will ever get to see. He was flagged offside and ref blew the whistle but the dutchman had already thought about the shot and after taking it was sent off for lashing at the ball! A very very poor decision that you do not expect off of a champions league ref!..

Barca marched on from their on in and got their second goal following an absolutely exquisite passing move involving iniesta, villa and xavi with the latter finishing if off with a calm finish past almunia that looked to have taken a little touch off of sagna!

They got their third shortly after when koscielny tripped pedro in the box and the ref pointed to the penalty spot. Lionel messi stepped up to take it and calmly slotted it past almunia into the bottom right corner.

On the night barca definitely definitely deserved that win! The arsenal players just didn show up at all and were punished for playing so defensively. Their was not a single shot on goal from the londoners and that stat just basically sums up the whole game!