By the time you read this blog I will have joined the exodus of the Gooner Nation south towards Catalonia. I shall be somewhere over France when this blog is published on a flight to Barcelona.
I’ve always adored Barcelona as a city since I was a teenager. I especially love the mixture of new and old architecture. The only downside of a wonderful city are the world-class pickpockets who operate on public transport in the If you let your guard down for a moment on the buses, trams or metro you’ll find yourself without your valuables. The mainline railway station of Sants is a similar magnet for the tea-leafs.
The same sort of pond-life preys on visitors to London too on the buses and Tube. If you take sensible precautions like using a money belt for your cash, credit/debit cards and passport you’ll be OK. If you’ve “had a drink taken” as they say in Ireland I’d recommend a cab however. They’re not as expensive as they are here in London and certainly less expensive than being dipped, especially if you’ve forgotten the travel insurance.
Whether I’ll like Barcelona nearly as much as I do at the moment to a large extent will depend on the result at the Camp Nou tomorrow night. As seems almost inevitable with any big game we’ve played in the last six seasons we’ll have key absentees through injury. A 1-0 win will do Barça of course. A 2-1 win would take the game into extra time and penalties if there were no further scoring.
If we can manage an early goal tomorrow night that would put the cat amongst the pigeons, meaning the Catalans would have to score at least three assuming no further reply from us. If we score two tomorrow night then the game couldn’t go to extra time. It would have to be decided in the ninety minutes. Any one goal win for Barcelona other than 1-0 or 2-1 would put us through on away goals. Any draw does us.
Last season we went 1-0 up before Lionel Messi got to work. Short of a machine gun or machete keeping the little Argentine subdued is no easy task. For an hour in the first leg we were chasing shadows, although we held up far better than in the first leg at home in last season’s quarter-finals. We fought back for an excellent win which has given us a puncher’s chance tomorrow night. Take that chance and it will provide the momentum for the rest of the season that we were hoping a win in the Carling Cup Final would give us.
That wasn’t to be, courtesy of some pub-team defending right at the death. We need to put that behind us, whilst learning the lesson. Going back the League, Saturday’s performance against Sunderland at the Grove was less than stellar to be generous. At least we managed a point however. Manchester United has let us back into the race by losing their last two games. They were woeful against a resurgent Liverpool yesterday, being well-beaten 3-1 at Anfield. We now trail them by three points with a game in hand, are three goals back on goal difference by 33 to 30 and trail by six in goals scored which stand at 63 to 57.
If we can recover some form in the League and go on a run it could end up being very, very tight at the end of the season. I think it’s unlikely we’ll score six more goals than them between now and the end of the season. We have ten remaining fixtures. United has nine, including a visit to our place on 1 May. I can see the title being decided on goal difference though. The cracks are starting to show at Old Trafford, despite Alex Ferguson, a man whom I detest but whose track record as a manager I admire, doing the best to wallpaper them over. Whether Ferguson can produce one more backs to the wall run is an open question. At least the title is back in our hands now. We can afford no further slip-ups though.
We have to put all that to one side at the moment and concentrate on tomorrow night in the Camp Nou.
Keep the faith!
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