How I feel today? Well first I feel despair and with this an awful feeling of frustration and anger. Yet we must not allow these negative emotions to overwhelm us. Why? well the reason is that we as a club must not be distracted by the events leading to our elimination from the Champions League, yes there are many lessons to be learned, not least the wisdom of playing players below par in terms of fitness or form. Arsenal were let down by several factors and to dwell upon them for too long with a very important game coming at the weekend would be folly. We have to accept the grim reality and refocus. We still have titles to try and win.
The reality is that we are out of the competition, so lets deal with it and move on. Lets give credit where it is due to Barcelona. We have witnessed probably the best football team of this generation, in terms of work ethic, close ball skills and ball retention. We are lucky that the kind of game that we aspire to play was the main reason for our defeat. I would rather lose to a team like Barcelona, rather than be kicked out of it by a lesser team who resorted to negative anti-football with aggression and cheating.
In an earlier blog I had warned you all about the unsavoury side of Barca, in terms of gamesmanship, and it was on show last night, and it is something that tarnishes the good work of Pep Guardiola. But to blame our defeat solely upon the sending of Robin van Persie or the failure to give Abidal a red card is to ignore our own faults and shortcomings. The Arsenal Players that I could have predicted to either miss chances or concede possession did as they were expected to because the sad fact is, they are not good enough to be the future of Arsenal football team.
I do not have to name these players, as the more they play, the more it has become obvious to everyone else. Arsene Wenger must take responsibility for the bad fortunes of the club as well as taking credit for the successes. It is he who selects the team and last night his gambles did not pay off. The tactics were sound albeit risky but the difference between the two teams seems today a gulf in footballing class, which if we are sensible, we should seek to learn from. Yes there was inconsistent refereeing and we were hampered by injuries, but the absence of a single shot on or off target is a damning statistic that someone has to explain.
OK, now to the pride. We as fans should be very proud of the team that suffered the defeat last night. On closer scrutiny there were several good things that came out of last night. We never bowed our heads and we played right up until the end. The efforts were real and even though this was not our style of play, they were disciplined enough to stick to the game plan and not panic. Even allowing for our own shortcomings, we kept the score down to the point that had we been able to score one more time then it is Barcelona that would be realising today that they were out of the competition. So I salute all of the Arsenal players and pledge my support unconditionally for the games and tasks ahead. Perhaps after a short period of negative reflections, other fans should do the same…
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