Last night, Arsenal were knocked out of the Champions League by a far superior Barcelona side. There’s no shame in that; I don’t think anyone will succeed in overcoming the Catalan giants in this year’s tournament. They aren’t perfect though - Arsenal scored six times in the four encounters between the two, and possibly should have scored more. If you attack them, you might score, but by doing that you’re leaving yourself open at the back and they’ll probably score more than you.
Jose Mourinho proved with his Inter side last season that Barcelona are beatable, but that was courtesy of one of the finest defensive displays ever witnessed in the Champions League. To beat them by attacking them is another thing. It’s an almighty task for any opponent, and you could argue that succeeding against them is as psychological as it is technical. You need: a) patience, b) concentration, and c) most importantly, luck. In the second leg at the Nou Camp, Arsenal managed, at most, one out of three.
It must be incredibly frustrating chasing shadows as most teams do when facing Guardiola’s side - mentally exhausting, and I have sympathy with Arsenal’s attack, who failed to manage one shot on goal last night. Once they managed to get the ball off them, they couldn’t find space; they were surrounded by blue and red, and on the rare occasion that space became available, they couldn’t take advantage.
So how do you beat Barcelona?
1) Pace
Arsenal looked most dangerous when running at the Barcelona defence. I thought Wilshere and Nasri were excellent - Nasri made several dashes down the left, and one of those led to the corner from which Busquets headed into his own net. For me, this highlighted how much they missed Walcott last night. He has his critics - decision making perhaps isn’t his forte, but his lethal pace frightens the life out of defences. Barcelona play so high up the pitch, so there is a vast area of space to run into if they give the ball away (see Bendtner goal last season).
2) Set Pieces
Barcelona don’t do set pieces. When they get a corner, they normally play it short, or look for a pass to start another 200 pass move. So inevitably, defending corners makes them uncomfortable. They aren’t a big side, so any crosses into the box can be a problem, as seen by the panic which resulted in a clumsy own goal last night. Nikola Zigic is a pretty hopeless player, but Barcelona would have been scared stiff of him if he was in an Arsenal shirt last night.
3) Don’t play them at their own game
They have the three most technically gifted players in world football: Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi. The speed in which they can find space, control the ball with the perfect touch, and then play it to a team-mate is incredible. Arsenal are excellent at this type of football; the best in the Premier League, but they struggled to string together three passes in a row last night. Off the ball, Barcelona are as good as they are with the ball. They don’t worry about the player who is free, they just make sure the ball doesn’t get to him. This makes it even more important to play to their weaknesses - pace, width and height.
4) Have a full strength first eleven
There isn’t much a manager can do to guarantee the fitness of his first choice eleven. It’s a long season, and if you want to compete in all competitions, you will get injuries. Arsenal certainly would have been a greater threat to Barcelona had Walcott been available, and a fully fit Cesc Fabregas may have influenced the game as he would have hoped. Whether Arsenal would have beaten them is another matter, but there are enough frailties in Barcelona’s defence to suggest that they are far from invincible.
5) Get lucky
Arsenal had their share of luck over the two legs: Messi had a perfectly good goal ruled out for offside in the first leg, and at the Nou Camp, the same player may have felt hard done by when the referee didn’t give a penalty for a blatant foul. Whether it was inside the box is debatable, but it was one of many decisions that referee Massimo Busacca got horribly wrong. The major piece of luck that Arsenal did not receive, was the crazy second yellow card shown to Dutch striker Robin Van Persie for kicking the ball away after the whistle was blown. Whether he heard the whistle or not is irrelevant; how the referee deemed it as time-wasting is baffling. It’s not like he kicked the ball into row Z, and it wasn’t the 89th minute, so wasting time at this point in the game wouldn’t have been in Van Persie’s mind. However, common sense didn’t prevail, and the Dutchman was sent off, making Arsenal’s task near impossible. If he had stayed on the pitch, would he have converted the chance that Nicklas Bendtner missed? Possibly. It would have been a win coated with fortune for the Gunners, but injustice in football is common, and in most cases, required, to beat the mighty Barcelona.
Mighty - yes. Perfect - no. They have weaknesses, and if you try to exploit those flaws; run at them and get some high crosses into the box, they are beatable. However, you’ve also got to hope that they have an off day and you get the rub of the green. Possible. Unlikely, but possible.
