Saturday’s efficient despatch of Wolves at the Grove cheered me up after last week’s fiasco on Tyneside. Robin van Persie has hit a rich vein of form this season. Long may it continue. Rockin’ Robin showed his grasp of colloquial English in a post-match interview with the BBC, referring to scoring with this “chocolate” leg, which made me smile. Long may his run of form continue, along with an absence of the injuries that have blighted his time at Arsenal.
I was worried about Saturday’s game given our collapse of discipline and concentration in the second half against Toon the previous weekend. We can afford no more of that for the balance of the season if we wish to have silverware to show for our efforts this term.
Unfortunately United’s win in the Manchester Derby against City keeps the gap between top spot and us in second at four points. I think we’re going to have to beat them at our place to have any chance at the title, as well as bettering their results in the balance of our respective League games. We’re three goals behind United in goal difference, 32 to 29, and one goal behind in goals scored, 57 to 56. As every Gooner knows the secondary points tie-breaker of goals scored can end up being very important. It’s exactly how we won the title on that memorable night at Anfield against Liverpool in May 1989.
Unlike the Football League – whose regulations include a third tie-breaker in the event of points, goal difference and goals scored all being equal (the head to head League results between the two clubs that season) – Premier League regulations require a play-off in the event of it being all square on points, goal difference and goals scored. If I were the Premier League I’d have a contingency plan in place just in case.
This would probably have to be at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff as the Champions League Final is at Wembley this season. UEFA regulations require that the ground holding the final stage no matches for two weeks prior to the final. The Football League One and Two play-offs have had to be moved to Old Trafford this season to accommodate this. The Conference play-off final has been moved to Eastlands likewise. I doubt that a play-off will be necessary but I wouldn’t bank on it if I were the Premier League.
Whether we continue to have any direct interest in the Champions League we’ll have a much better idea this week with the visit of FC Barcelona to the Grove on Wednesday night for the first leg of our round of sixteen tie. Barça absolutely belted us last season in the quarter-finals. We have to believe that we can put in a performance that improves on our “startled rabbits in the headlights” showing against them last term. We gave a slightly better account of ourselves in the second half at the Grove. After a reasonable start at the Camp Nou in the second leg, Lionel Messi proceeded to tear us a new one.
As Internazionale proved in the semi-finals last season however, Barça aren’t invincible. They’ve already lost at home this season to Hércules of Alicante in La Liga. They only managed a 1-1 draw this weekend away to Sporting Gijón. Yes, they are an excellent team, truly excellent. But we have to believe we can beat them over two legs in order to do so.
What’s required is absolute believe, absolute focus, absolute discipline, absolute commitment. Barcelona works incredibly hard on its pressing game when they lose possession, without ever losing their fundamental shape and tactical discipline. They have quality all over the pitch. I do believe they can be beaten however. They have an added incentive this season as the final is at Wembley. Wembley is hallowed ground for the Catalan giants as it was the scene of their first ever triumph in the European Champion Clubs’ Cup (forerunner the Champions League) in 1992. We’ll need to be at our very, very best on Wednesday to take a defensible lead to the Camp Nou next month in the second leg.
I believe we need to stop them scoring as much as we need goals ourselves. This might seem obvious and even trite. It’s nevertheless true. Stop them scoring at our place, score an early away goal in the Camp Nou and the tie can’t go to extra time, removing one of the major advantages of playing at home second. We’d have the away goal rule working to our advantage.
Don’t get me wrong. I know we have a real struggle on our hands. Most teams are a reflection of their manager’s personality, football beliefs and temperament. Never more true in our case with Arsčne Wenger. Wenger needs to up his game as much as the team do. We have a marked tendency to veer from arrogance and consequent sloppiness to fear and paralysis. We have to cut those two extremes out – completely. We have to respect all opponents without exception but fear none. I believe that this tie will be settled as much by the top twelve centimetres of each player (the bit between their ears) as it will be the relative technical and tactical merits of each side. We need to have our heads firmly screwed on on Wednesday night.
Barça will almost certainly be ruthless in punishing any lapses on our part. Off the field FC Barcelona couldn’t have provided the Gooner Nation with a better incentive to do our part in cheering the team on to victory. Their ruthless and unethical pursuit of our skipper Cesc Fàbregas during the summer post World Cup couldn’t have been more low-rent and classless. I admire Barça in so many ways as a sporting institution. Their naked pursuit of Cesc, especially their arrogant sense of entitlement in trying to sign him on the cheap belittled and besmirched a great club. They should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. I don’t suppose they are. There is an institutional arrogance that seems woven into the very DNA of the Camp Nou. It is their least attractive feature as a club.
I want to see us take that arrogant sense of entitlement and thrust it firmly up their collective rear end. It’ll need every last ounce of effort from the players on the park, the coaching staff and manager and us in the stands to make that happen. It can be done.
Keep the faith!
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