Arsenal were rewarded with all three points for a concentrated and energetic performance against Blackburn at Ewood Park.

The home side caused trouble for us throughout the match with their game plan to attack aerially via long balls but our boys stood up well, scoring two goals either side of Mame Biram Diouf’s equaliser to secure a 2-1 win.

Our two best attacking players, captain Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie, returned to the starting team along with Laurent Koscielny, meaning Tomas Rosicky, Jack Wilshere and Marouane Chamakh (rather harshly, in my opinion) were dropped to the bench. The changes meant that Rigobert Alex Song pushed further forward to join Fabregas and Abou Diaby in what I consider to be our first-choice midfield combination.

We knew what Blackburn would throw at us and the went for it right from the first whistle, launching long balls into the area through Paul Robinson and long throws through Morten Gamst Pedersen. It was a little worrying to see us allow the first two long balls bounce in the area but the defence adjusted quickly, lead by a determined Manuel Almunia who confidently claimed the first cross he went for and commanded his area well throughout.

While Blackburn enjoyed their fair share of attacking success early in the game, having a header cleared off the line by Fabregas and forcing Almunia into a superb fingertip save, it was us who scored first. Song, Arshavin and van Persie were all involved in a superb move that allowed Theo Walcott to race free on the right, take a touch and fire a well-struck shot across the goalkeeper that quite literally, broke the net.

It was a relief to take the lead after all of Blackburn’s pressure but they leveled the game just seven minutes later as Christopher Samba’s foray forward surprised our defence and eventually allowed El Hadji Diouf to set up his long-lost cousin to score. It has to be said it was quite poor defending by our boys, particularly Koscielny who misjudged his contact with El Hadji Diouf and was bodied off the ball.

The contest could be viewed by some to be evidence that Koscielny is too lightweight for the Premier League but I think this is incorrect: he won similar challenge with Fernando Torres at Liverpool on the opening day and my opinion of the incident was that Koscielny simple believed he would win the tackle more comfortably than he did. Indeed, given his tackling statistics over the 90 minutes, you can forgive him for thinking he would!

Soon after their goal van Persie was taken off after twisting his ankle, replaced by Chamakh. The Dutchman looked to be in quite a bit of pain but the good news is that it was not the same ankle he injured last season and he should be available again in around two weeks.

I have to admit feeling extremely frustrated with Arsene Wenger when van Persie went down: with Chamakh in good form I firmly believe the Dutchman should have been given another week of preparation before starting and I just hope he can shake off this new problem as soon as possible. The last thing we want is our number one forward having another injury-ravaged season which prevents him from making the impact that we all know he can.

At 1-1 at half-time I was a little worried: both sides had enjoyed good opportunities, it was a real end-to-end game and it could go either way. So what delight I felt when Arshavin tucked away his chance to make it 2-1!

Although the finish was a little scrappier, like the first goal, our second came about because of an excellent passing move. Just like van Persie for the opener, Chamakh dropped deep to receive from midfield, feeding a hungry Bacary Sagna down the set up Arshavin’s chance via a Fabregas shot blocked by Walcott’s arse. Arshavin’s finish to beat Robinson and three Blackburn players on the line was classy.

From this point on it always felt like our game to lose and while Blackburn still created some half-chances, the most notable one coming through serial goalscorer (and burger-eater) David Dunn, we looked more likely to score.

Fabregas had an inconsistent game but still managed to conjure up the most memorable moment of the game: an exquisite pass threaded through several Blackburn defenders to set up Chamakh with a shot on goal. It was the sort of pass that only the very best players in the world can see let alone execute and underlines one of the reasons why Wenger was so desperate to keep him in the squad. Just look at the images below.

The ebb and flow of the game was maintained right until the final moments when Jack Wilshere, on for Arshavin, did a John Terry after being put in the clear by Walcott and Chamakh. Diaby in particular will have been frustrated to see Wilshere waste the opportunity after doing his best Patrick Vieira impression earlier in the move, but 2-1 it ended as the Arsenal boys came away with a terrific win at Ewood Park.

It was great to see Walcott make his mark against a side that afforded him less space: he was a joy to watch throughout this match, causing Blackburn all sorts of problems with his movement on and off the ball and confidently finishing his only real chance. He’s started the season on fire and every Arsenal fan will be hoping he can maintain a level of consistency throughout the rest of the campaign.

Likewise, Diaby was absolutely sensational today. I have said time and time again that Diaby becomes a different player when he has Song and Fabregas around him. He is not and will never be a leader, it’s just not his nature, so he usually tends to flourish when less responsibility is placed on his shoulders and he can play his natural game. On days like this decision-making is sharp, his unique attacking style causes defenders all sorts of problems and it is for this reason why I would always play him if Fabregas and Song are also available.

It should also be noted that Diaby did an important defensive job on Samba: maintaining body contact with the Blackburn man and preventing him from having any real impact on set pieces. The one time Samba made real contact on the ball he headed over, a direct result of Diaby’s physical pressure. Well done, Abou!

In conclusion, I want to reiterate how good I feel this result was for Arsenal.

Blackburn’s record at home last season was formidable and if you had said we would have taken 7 points from our opening three games of the season, including two away trips to Blackburn and Liverpool, I would certainly have taken them. There is obviously still some concerns with our defending but you could see that every single one of the fourteen players who entered the pitch were ready for the contest, ready to fight for the red and white and were duly rewarded.

Fantastic stuff.

Have your say on Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Blackburn by leaving a comment.

The Arsenal boys recorded their first win of the season via a 6-0 thumping of Blackpool at Emirates Stadium on Saturday.

It was game packed with feel-good moments: Theo Walcott responded to his World Cup dumping by scoring an excellent hat-trick, Cesc Fabregas was given a brilliant response from the fans on his introduction from the substitutes bench and Marouane Chamakh scored his debut goal since signing from Bordeaux.

There was one significant change to the starting line-up that I predicted on Friday with Alex Song stepping in at centre-back instead of Johan Djourou and Tomas Rosicky replacing the injured Samir Nasri in midfield

The star of the show was Walcott, who caused Blackpool no end of trouble with his pace and movement and finished up the game with three superbly-taken goals.

Perhaps what impressed even more about Walcott was that his decision-making regarding when to carry the ball and when to release the ball early, quite often his undoing, was spot-on.

Two first-half moments summed this up for me: the first involved him heading a one-two with Rosicky before racing down the wing and setting Andrey Arshavin up with an accurate cross, the second involved a lovely bit of dribbling in the centre of the pitch and a beautifully-disguised pass for Chamakh that the Moroccan pulled wide of the goal.

Walcott will continue to have a tendency to be inconsistent at this stage of his career but his performance at Blackpool was a reminder of the potential impact he can have for Arsenal going forward.

The key moment of the game came after Walcott’s opener as Ian Evatt was sent-off for bringing down a through-on-goal Chamakh.

The red card effectively ended Blackpool’s chances: with a man down they were always more likely to receive a belting then get back into the game.

And so it proved as Arshavin slotted home the penalty, Walcott added a third and the team coasted towards the break.

Arsenal ran riot in the second half, Abou Diaby continuing the scoring with a lovely fourth goal before turning provider for Walcott to complete his hat-trick and make the score five nil.

Chamakh should have opened his account soon after, shinning over with the goal at his mercy, but made up for it later to complete the scoring with a towering header from substitute Robin van Persie’s corner kick.

Although Walcott’s performance was the big positive to come out of this game there were plenty of others: Arshavin was far more busy than in the opening game, Jack Wilshere was given more time and space to show what he can do and Chamakh showed good determination to react from two poor misses to score his first goal for the club.

You have to be a sad man to find something to criticise when your team wins 6-0, and I am not a sad man.

It may only have been against Blackpool but you cant only beat what is put in front of you and for all the fans who saw the game in the stadium or on television around the world, this was a thoroughly-enjoyable win.

Thoughts?

Have your say on Arsenal’s 6-0 win over Blackpool by leaving a comment.

AFCB editor Andrew Weber reviews all the action from Anfield on the opening day of the season…

Arsenal snatched a late equaliser to draw 1-1 with Liverpool as Pepe Reina’s calamitous own goal denied the hosts an opening-day win at Anfield.

Reduced to ten men after Joe Cole’s poor tackle on Laurent Koscielny just before the break, Liverpool responded well to take the lead early in the second-half when David Ngog punished an error by Jack Wilshere.

But Marouane Chamakh’s brave header panicked Reina into putting through his own net and ensured our boys came away from Anfield with a result.

In a game in which the key moments all involved players on their debut, a pair of very late Koscielny’s bookings left both sides with ten men at the final whistle.

Arsene Wenger sprung a couple of surprises in his starting team with Wilshere named in the middle alongside Abou Diaby and Samir Nasri and Emmanuel Eboue selected on the right ahead of Theo Walcott.

The young Englishman had a tough debut, giving the ball away for Liverpool’s goal and misplacing one or two passes, but impressed with his workrate and willingness to establish a physical presence.

Hopefully we will see much more of him this season.

Nasri had a busy game at the heart of the midfield, spraying passes around delightfully despite hanging onto the ball too long on occasion, while Diaby struggled to show off his best qualities from a slightly deeper position.

All three midfielders had decent games but quite understandably, given the trio had never played together, the balance didn’t appear to be quite right at any stage of the match.

Manuel Almunia was given the No 1 shirt in goals, as well as the captain’s armband in Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie’s absence (why not Thomas Vermaelen?), but failed to convince as both a goalkeeper and captain.

Almunia’s first effort was to flap at a Liverpool corner and although he made a couple of routine stops to deny Glen Johnson and Steven Gerrard’s long-range efforts, he did not exude confidence and was partially at fault for not standing tall on Ngog’s opening strike.

The two remaining debutants, Koscielny and Chamakh, were quite impressive.

Koscielny read the game well, made some smart fouls, showed good pace and strength to beat Fernando Torres on a couple of occasions late on and was desperately unlucky to be sent off for a Thomas Mueller-esque handball.

Chamakh meanwhile had a strong debut, never shirking out of the physical battle and forcing the goal by doing what he did best for Bordeaux: putting his head in where other players simply wouldn’t.

Liverpool had the better of the first half in terms of chances created with Milan Jovanovic firing over when he should have crossed and Ngog forcing Gael Clichy, who had a very quiet game at left-back, to clear off the line.

But the game’s complexion changed on the stroke of half-time as Cole, who endured a poor opening 45 minutes and was clearly over-eager to impress, dived in late in the corner to scissor Koscielny’s leg.

Although replays showed that the contact was not as bad as it appeared from the referee’s viewpoint it was still a ridiculous and pointless challenge from a player who had nothing to gain from making such a tackle.

At 11 v 10 one would have expected Arsenal to come out and dominate after half-time but it wasn’t to be as David Ngog capitalised on a mistake by Wilshere to hammer home a shot into the roof of the net.

Wilshere was visibly frustrated with his mistake and his general performance deteriorated from that point until Wenger replaced the 18-year-old with Tomas Rosicky, one of a pair of substitutions that also saw Emmanuel Eboue, who had been fairly anonymous throughout, make way for Theo Walcott.

The chances finally started to flow soon after: Walcott forcing Reina into a decent save from a free-kick and Rosicky pressing the goalkeeper into a wonderful flying save after quick feet and a clever interchange with the third and final substitute, Robin van Persie.

Andrey Arshavin popped up from anonymity to provide a good cross for van Persie that Walcott almost pounced on to open the scoring, but the crucial goal came a minute later when Chamakh’s bravery flustered Reina into an awful fumble.

Koscielny’s red card concluded a frantic final twenty minutes that saw Arsenal come away with the result they just about deserved and spared the blushes of losing to a team that played with ten men for the entire second half.

This was not a brilliant attacking performance: for all of our possession the passing and movement was not crisp enough to move Liverpool’s ten men around and create the space required to punish them.

If there is a real positive to be taken out of this game – other than the impressive debuts of Chamakh and Koscielny – it is that without losing the match, Wenger has been given a final warning of what needs to happen for Arsenal to realistically challenge for the title.

Pre-game I stated firmly that a new first-choice goalkeeper and fourth central defender needs to come in to complete this squad.

If Almunia’s indifferent performance and Koscielny’s red card, which leaves Arsenal with just Vermaelen as the only fit centre-back for Blackpool next weekend, doesn’t force Wenger into acting on making the two signings then put simply, nothing will.

In the end a point was a good result for Arsenal at Anfield and there is plenty to feel optimistic about.

Have your say on Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Liverpool by leaving a comment.

Check out ‘Yemi’s player ratings from Arsenal v Liverpool here.

I won’t lie to you, I didn’t get to see much of Arsenal’s 2-1 loss to Blackburn.

I saw highlights of the goals as well as a sustained period of about twenty minutes across half time, but not enough that would give me the right to comment on our overall performance.

What I can comment on was the fact that despite the headlines about Lukasz Fabianski’s errors, for neither of the goals did he receive enough support from the defence. Both Bacary Sagna and Sol Campbell failed to make their physical presence felt between their Blackburn opponents and our goalkeeper and it made Fabianski’s job much more difficult than it should have been.

Up the other end Carlos Vela blew an easy chance to get his only goal of the season while Robin van Persie did get one, his first since returning from injury. It was good to see him finding the net, hopefully a sign of things to come next season.

The loss leaves us in an odd situation where failure to take anything from our final game at home against Fulham could see us finish fourth. It’s unlikely, given that Tottenham would have to beat Manchester City and also win their final game, but it is disappointing that things have gotten so tight.

I should say at this point that there won’t be too much more blogging from me over the next week. There will be a preview and review of the Fulham game before a full end of season report but aside from that, not much else.

Thoughts?

Have your say on Arsenal’s 2-1 loss to Blackburn by leaving a comment.

Apart from it winning the hypothetical, unofficial award for most boring Arsenal game of the season there isn’t much to say about yesterday’s 0-0 draw with Manchester City.

Both defences ruled and it made for an dour affair, in complete contrast to the hyperactive attacking duel that I had expected pre-game. A lot of that had to do with a slight injury keeping boo-boy Emmanuel Adebayor from the City line-up and although his arrival on the hour-mark lifted the intensity slightly, neither side went seriously close to scoring.

Pre-game I was half-expecting us to lose but Roberto Mancini’s overly conservative tactics meant that was never a possibility. For a team who had so much to play for I was extremely surprised by City’s attacking endeavour, particularly against an Arsenal team missing so many key players.

The best thing that can be said about the game and indeed the result is that the draw coupled with Tottenham’s loss to Manchester United, all but ensures that we will finish in third place this season. That means a one-place improvement on last season and the avoidance of a potentially tricky post-World Cup Champions League qualifier, certainly nothing to be laughed at.

The finish, combined with the fact that a few of our key players will not be featuring in South Africa, should see us start next season very strongly. The likes of Thomas Vermaelen, Andrey Arshavin, Tomas Rosicky will all be absent from World Cup action over June and July and should provide some real drive for the other lads on day one of the 2010/11 campaign.

Besides that, there’s nothing much more to say on what was quite simply a horrible day of football. Here’s hoping Blackburn away *vomits in his own mouth* will be better.

Thoughts?

Have your say on Arsenal’s 0-0 draw with Manchester City by leaving a comment.

Whatever slim hopes we had of winning the league this season were comprehensively dashed yesterday as our boys lost 3-2 at Wigan.

There are two contrasting schools of thought that could provide the reasoning for yesterday’s result.

The first comes from the optimists, blaming the injury crisis and a lack of quality players for the defeat. The second comes from the pessimists, blaming the team on the pitch of complacency and the manager of incompetence. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I spoke after the Spurs game of the fact that we are always going to find it difficult to win games when each and every one of our key players, the first six names on the team sheet, are not available. Once again Cesc Fabregas, William Gallas, Andrey Arshavin and Alex Song were injured, joined by Thomas Vermaelen after last week and with only Robin van Persie on the bench. Once again we found it difficult.

People will point to the fact that we had cruised to a 2-0 lead as proof that the starting team had enough quality to win the game. While that is a fair point, a game of football is played over 90 minutes and it was late on that our lack of quality, particularly in the midlde and defensive thirds of the pitch, was punished.

Can you imagine if someone had told you at the start of the season that the defensive core of our team with five games to go, with the title still in sight, was made up of Lukasz Fabianski, Sol Campell, Mikael Silvestre and Craig Eastmond? You would have quite literally laughed in their face. But that’s what we had and when the going got tough, they and the players around them crumbled.

In saying that there is no denying the fact that the team got complacent. Yet as frustrating as it was to see, particularly after the 2-2 draw with West Ham earlier in the season, it was also quite understandable. When you are lacking the key, experienced players, the ones that keep motivation high in those situations, it’s much easier to get complacent.

As I’ve said before, the best example of this is Abou Diaby. Love him or hate him, Diaby is not a leader. He is a support player, at time a spectacularly devastating one, that requires experienced, reliable players around him to bring out his best performances. He is not the smartest of players at the best of times and with Eastmond and Samir Nasri as his partners in the middle he undoubtedly lost his focus in the second half.

But do you get rid of a player like Diaby just because he is not a cerebral genius or a leader? Or do you accept his flaws as a player and understand his role in the team, that of an attacking midfielder who can create like very few in world football when he supported by experienced players? I know I would.

So the issue of complacency in this game is one worth asking, but in my opinion the problem lay in a complete lack of key players providing the sort of guidance to protect the young players against it, rather than a general problem within the squad. Just one or two of the group I mentioned above would have been sufficient to prevent our rather spectacular demise.

I might be alone in thinking this but I saw three major positives to come out of this game.

The first was the performance of Craig Eastmond, who was absolutely superb in only his second league start ever for the club. His statistics via Guardian Chalkboards showed he made 30 complete passes at a 97% completion rate and that, combined with his excellent composure on the ball and intelligent positioning bodes well for the future.

Likewise, Tomas Rosicky’s energetic performance was a terrific sign of things to come. Observant supporters will have noted he barely ever completes 90 minutes, undoubtedly due to the manager wanting to nurse him back to health, and never plays two games in a short space of time, with the exception of a shocking performance at the Camp Nou played three days after a full match against Wolves. Rosicky will undoubtedly continue to work on his strength and fitness over the off-season and will become a very important player next season.

Finally, the manager’s post match comments suggest to me that he is getting frustrated with a few players, particularly his goalkeepers, and that he may well be at the end of his tether. Another terrific Arsenal blogger, Wrighty7, made the point that he felt Wenger turned down the opportunity to make one or two more January signings to give a few of his players one more chance to prove themselves. I think it’s fair to say he’s been let down by a few – I won’t name names yet – and it will be interesting to see what goes on at the end of the season.

Before then we have work to do.

Spurs are breathing down our back, a desperate Manchester City are up next and third is no longer a certainty. From the season being over, it is all of a sudden back on again. Not in the best way, mind.

Thoughts?

PS. For the people calling for Arsene Wenger to be sacked off the back of this performance, just read this.

Have your say on Arsenal’s loss to Wigan by leaving a comment.

The fat lady has sung. Loud and clear.

A 2-1 reverse to Tottenham at White Hart Lane, our first North London Derby defeat in over a decade, has ended our hopes of winning the Premier League title.

It was always going to be difficult, it was always going to be unlikely and now, it is over. Six points and a significant amount of goal difference stand between us and Chelsea, a gap that is simply too large to bridge with just four games remaining. Stranger things have happened, of course, but they simply won’t be happening this season.

First things first I want to send my condolences to all the UK born and/or bred Arsenal supporters who will be copping flak from co-workers, friends and family for the loss to our local rivals. It’s going to be a long day for you and I hope you can make it through.

I can understand that there is a lot of frustration around the place at the moment. Heck, our season has just been ended at the hands of our most hated rivals. If there’s a time for being frustrated then this is it. However, I do feel we need to maintain a sense of perspective over what we have achieved this season and the very understandable factors that have prevented us from achieving more.

In many ways the reasons for our Tottenham defeat are representative of our season as a whole.

I know that using the excuse of injuries will be frowned upon by many but the quality and quantity of the players missing in this game, as well as the second-leg defeat to Barcelona a week ago, simply cannot be ignored.

All good teams have a host of key players that are ably supported by a larger group of support players. The key players are in effect the leaders of the group, players capable of combining consistency with brilliance and as a result inspiring confidence in the support group to play without fear and to the best of their limited ability.

This season has shown our key players to be Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie, William Gallas, Alex Song, Andrey Arshavin and Thomas Vermaelen. Only the latter started this game and for the period between his first-half injury and van Persie’s unexpected introduction, we played without any of them.

Under those circumstances, against a fired-up Tottenham team shooting for fourth place in the league, it was always going to be difficult. To put it another way: if you took Xavi, Lionel Messi, Carlos Pujol, Seydou Keita, Andres Iniesta and Gerard Pique out of Barcelona and forced them to play against Valencia in the Mestalla, would you expect them to win? It’s unlikely.

Without one of Cesc or Song in the middle the likes of Samir Nasri, Abou Diaby and Denilson look completely different players. They look timid and unsure of themselves. With Cesc and Song they look like world beaters, particularly Diaby. It is an example of why support players need the key players around to help the team function as a whole. Too often this season we have been denied that opportunity.

There will be people that say I am simply making excuses for another failed season, that I am avoiding the problems of squad depth and the manager’s inexcusable decision not purchase more players. However, the evidence suggests that Wenger has not only noted the areas where we lack depth but made steps to address them.

Sol Campbell’s signing in the summer transfer window was made to counter a unique problem involving both Johan Djourou and Philippe Senderos that left us short of defensive options on the very eve of the season. I have no doubt in my mind that Djourou was set for a big season with Arsenal, that he would have been rotated regularly with Gallas and Vermaelen and that the calf injuries to our first-choice pair, a result of poor man management and overplaying, would have been far less likely to occur.

However, after making it clear to Senderos that he was not wanted Djourou’s knee played up and both options were lost. It would have been unfair to make Senderos stay at a pivotal moment of his career and likewise, the proximity of Djourou’s injury to the first game of the season made a replacement impossible. In hindsight it was a horrible stroke of luck, yet one Wenger attempted to fix with the only player realistically happy to fill a short-term void; Campbell.

Likewise Wenger’s interest in Marouane Chamakh has indicated his understanding that for this team to function week-in, week-out with a 4-3-3 then at least three physical strikers are required to balance the load. Ideally having two in the front three gives us the best balance of strength, speed and skill and the inevitable signing of Chamakh means we will never have to see Arshavin play up front on his own again.

An argument can be made that Chamakh should have been brought in during the summer when both van Persie and Bendtner were sidelined but this simply wasn’t possible. The Moroccan’s current club Bordeaux were in the middle of their best ever season and were not happy to let Chamakh go for anything but big money. For a player in the last year of his contract who could be picked up on a free at the end of the season, it would have been foolish for a club so respected for its frugality to splash unreasonable cash.

Keen observers will note that in the early part of our season our 4-3-3 formation encouraged the two wingers to apply an immense amount of pressure on the opposition’s fullbacks, very similar to Barcelona’s approach. Arshavin and particularly Bendtner did this with aplomb but as the key options dropped off, so to did the ability for our players to provide that pressure and Chamakh’s arrival will certainly provide a solution to that problem.

The ridiculous injury to Aaron Ramsey has left us unfortunately short in the middle and this is an area that does require attention for the manager. Yet given that it occurred between the summer transfer window and the end of the season, no remedy could be found and therefore no blame could be attached to the manager.

Likewise Manuel Almunia’s bizarre fall from grace after a season that promised so much and Lukasz Fabianski’s inability to capitalise created a very difficult man-management problem for Wenger. It was not one he could sort out during the season but it is one he will have the opportunity to fix during the break.

I realise this has become a bit waffly but I suppose my point is this: there have been very understandable reasons for our inability to win silverware this season and they should be considered when judging the manager and the club’s performance.

Too many key players have been injured, a couple of very difficult man-management situations have prevented the opportunity to adequately cover the areas that have lacked depth and our goalkeepers have simply underperformed.

But on the positive side the squad appears to be playing with unity, showing a grit and togetherness that has not been apparent in previous season while the manager appears clued-in to the problems with his squad, as shown by the signings of Campbell and Chamakh. When you combine that with the solid state of our club, the development of a whole host of players – Song, Diaby, Bendtner, Gibbs and Eboue to name a few – and the fact that we have improved on last season’s league position there is much to remain optimistic about.

Extending our North London Derby record and winning the league title may have proved beyond us, but let’s not lose our perspective as to what has been achieved this season.

Thoughts?

Have your say on the North London Derby or the season as a whole by leaving a comment.

Is there a more empty and painful feeling in football than thinking about ‘what if?’ when your team has just lost an important game?

Our massive ‘what if?’ moment tonight came when the scores were locked at 1-1 and Tomas Rosicky set Nicklas Bendtner away with only the goalkeeper to beat and Theo Walcott in support. Whatever you think of the Danish striker’s finishing there was no way the ball wouldn’t have ended up in the back of the net but rather cruelly, the linesman incorrectly lifted his flag to indicate offside.

It should have been 2-1, leaving Barca needing to score two goals to knock us out of the competition. Instead it stayed at 1-1 and by half-time the home side had surged into an unassailable 3-1 lead thanks to the brilliance of Lionel Messi.

In fairness to Barcelona we did not deserve to get anything out this game. We also didn’t deserve to get anything out of the last game and when you put those two conclusions together we did not deserve to qualify for the semi-finals.

Barcelona outplayed, out-thought and won the tie in a manner that all Arsenal fans should admire. They are the benchmark for modern football for everything from their positive approach to the game, their ability to maintain possession, their fierce persistent to win the ball back at all costs when they don’t have it, their ingenuity and creativity in the final third and their pragmatism to know the right times to foul to kill their opponents move and the right way to foul to avoid excessive cautions.

They are the closest thing to a perfect team that I have seen in my twelve years as a football admirer.

It was always going to be tough on the night with a number of key names absent: the manager’s decision to start Mikael Silvestre a clear indication that in some areas we were down to our bare bones. The rest of the team was rather predictable as the usual suspects in the back five took their places, Denilson started in the holding role behind Abou Diaby and Samir Nasri and Bendtner lead the line with support from Rosicky on the left and Walcott on the right.

Our plan was to use Walcott and Diaby’s pace on the break and it was a concept that started swimmingly when the Frenchman fed the Englishman and he set up Bendtner who scored after Victor Valdes parried the first attempt. But Barcelona struck back through Messi, took the lead through Messi and then extended it through Messi to go in at the break 3-1 up.

It’s interesting to note that every one of the first-half goals had an element of good fortune about them: Bendtner’s initial shot fell kindly for the rebound; Eric Abidal’s cross was blocked by Thomas Vermaelen but fell kindly for Messi; Samir Nasri’s touch made Silvestre’s clearance difficult on their second and Vermaelen’s headed clearance fell fortuitously to Seydou Keita.

Despite being 3-1 down at half-time I was feeling quite optimistic. I felt our counter-attacking game was working well and if we could just sneak a second it might open up the door for a third. What I didn’t expect was that Pep Guardiola would make his mark on the game with a brilliant tactical move that essentially put the tie to bed.

When Abidal went down with a recurrence of the injury that kept him out the first leg and Maxwell prepared to come on, I had visions of Walcott teasing and tormenting him for the final forty minutes of the game. But Guardiola sensed the danger, brought on Yaya Toure for Bojan Krcic and instructed his team to refrain from pushing as high up on the pitch to retrieve possession, instead allowing our defenders to control the ball and clogging up the midfield.

It completely stifled our counter-attacking game and without a player of Cesc Fabregas’ quality orchestrating things from the middle – Nasri and Rosicky both had poor games – we were not able to pass our way through.

Messi ended the game with a fourth goal late on that showed off his best qualities as a player: exquisite close control, great trickery, dogged persistence and wonderful improvisation to finish between the goalkeeper’s legs. It was a great goal by one of the truly great players currently playing the game.

Despite being unable to get away from our ‘what if?’ moment the fact that we have been knocked out by the best team in Europe, against one of the best teams ever, does make it easier to accept. It was always going to be an unlikely task to go to the Nou Camp and get the result we wanted and we shouldn’t be too hard on our players for failing to achieve it.

Thoughts?

Have your say on Arsenal’s loss to Barcelona by leaving a comment.

As Theo Walcott’s mis-kick dribbled wide of the goal and television pictures scanned to the Arsenal bench to reveal Arsene Wenger’s looks of utter hopelessness and frustration I thought our Premier League dream was over.

I thought for all our scrapping, for all of our determination to fight back and snatch points with several goals as late as a Karl Henry tackle, it would all come down to nothing.

It’s not as though I didn’t think this might happen: that we actually might not win the league. With Manchester United and Chelsea leading us all the way and our injury crisis the envy of no team in the land it’s not like we were ever going to be favourites.

But for it to end here at home against Wolves? I really didn’t see that coming and it made the feeling all the worse.

As I sat in the living room at home in Australia at 2am in the morning I looked across to my right at my brother Patrick, sitting in a stressed silence, his brow frozen in a furrow. I looked across to my friend Darragh, his hands on his head squeaking noises of frustration with the situation we had got ourselves in.

And I noted the way I was feeling. Utterly defeated, wondering what the heck I was doing up at this ridiculous hour watching football the day before Easter, when kiddies all around the country were wrapped up in their beds ready to eat themselves sick in the morning.

But my thoughts were interrupted as Rosicky picked up the ball in midfield. He passed it to Walcott who decided against going at his man as he had done so many times already, instead shifting it back to Bacary Sagna who hit a first-time cross into the middle. And then…

GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The three of us jumped out of our seats, yelling at the top of our lungs, form some sort of man-triangle of love that would have made our mothers proud. When people say that the feelings felt watching football are better than sex, these are the sorts of moments they are talking about. But then…

*ding dong*

With the game still running and Wolves on a late, post-goal attack I did the dutiful thing and raced downstairs to answer the door. Behind it stood our next-door neighbour – a hilariously worrisome fellow with whom we do not have the best relationship – and the look of expression on his face was not the sort of a person delighted to have been woken at 2am in the morning.

“What’s going on?” he asked, “Is everything alright? It’s two in the morning! You woke up my sister and she thought someone had hurt themselves!”

“I’m sorry!” I replied, “We were just celebrating our team. I’m so, so sorry!”

But as I slammed the door and raced upstairs to see the referee blow the final and watch Emmanuel Eboue race onto the pitch to lift up the hero of the day and carry him around the pitch like the World Cup, I didn’t feel sorry at all.

I might have felt ecstatic, relieved and utterly, utterly exhausted, but I sure as hell didn’t feel sorry.

Football, what a game.

Thoughts?

Have your say on Arsenal’s terrific win over Wolves by leaving a comment.

Words cannot describe how good a game of football this was.

It was an emotional roller-coaster for Arsenal fans from start to finish: from the prolonged onslaught that Barcelona produced in the first half to our miraculously brave comeback which was completed when Cesc Fabregas hammered home his spot-kick.

2-2 it ended and although we scarcely deserved the result after Barcelona’s superiority in another way we completely did, displaying a never-say-die attitude that has served us so well at times this season.

There are so many things that can be discussed about this game but the main thing to say is that we’re still in it. We shouldn’t be, but we are.

It is a mark of the quality of Barcelona’s performance – and boy were they good! – that nearly every Arsenal supporter will be happy with the result. It leaves us with a lot of work to do in the Nou Camp but in this game logic went out the window and as well as our opponents played, it would not be beyond us to go to Catalonia and score a couple of goals and cause them some real problems.

Arsene Wenger pulled some big surprises in the starting line-up, beginning with Cesc Fabregas as well as rushing Andrey Arshavin and remarkably, William Gallas back into the side. The gamble backfired though as both Arshavin and Gallas were forced off during the first half for Emmanuel Eboue and Denilson, and now face respective three and six-week lay-offs.

Barcelona started this game in such a manner that they threatened to blow us away.

The statistics showed they had had nine efforts on goal and five shots on target in the opening 15 minutes while we had registered precisely zero. That we managed to survive that early onslaught was mainly down to the cool heads of Alex Song and Gael Clichy, the last-ditch defending of Gallas and Thomas Vermaelen and a remarkable performance by Manuel Almunia in goals.

Say what you want about his decision-making shortly after the break but this tie would be over had Almunia not put in such an inspired performance. A superb low save from Busquets early on set the tone and he followed it up with several brilliant stops including a great reflex save from Zlatan Ibrahimovic and a stunning close-range block on Xavi.

For all of Barcelona’s domination it was amazing that we might have taken a first-half lead on a number of occasions. Samir Nasri shot narrowly wide from the edge of the area, Abou Diaby headed wide from a half-chance while Nicklas Bendtner may well have scored if he had managed to keep himself onside at the critical moment.

Despite being battered from pillar to post and having to make a structural change because of the injury to Gallas (Song was moved to centre-back to allow Denilson into the middle, rather than bringing on Sol Campbell) we managed to get to half-time with our goal intact. It was a remarkable, scrappy, dogged performance that relied on last-ditch efforts and no little amount of luck but we got there.

At half-time I expected the manager to get into the players ears and encourage them to push the Barcelona players higher up the park to allow them less space to dictate the play. And while he may well have said something similar the team talk went out the window when Ibrahimovic waltzed through the offside trap after 20 seconds, Almunia wandered out of his goal and the Swede lifted the ball up and over him to open the scoring.

I would be unfair to say that Almunia undid all of his good work in the first-half with this mistake but with Song covering Ibrahimovic there was no need for him to move off his line. It was a disappointing way to concede, particularly so soon after the break and it got worse when Ibrahimovic scored a second, very similar goal, collected Xavi’s lofted pass to smash home a shot into the top corner.

At 2-0 down at The Emirates I couldn’t help but think about Manchester United last year in the Champions League semi-final. I couldn’t help but think about United in the league. About Chelsea in the league. About our inability to produce the goods against the very best teams in our home stadium. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the supporters in the stadium who were so badly craving a memorable night and had been let down so many times in the past couple of seasons.

What I didn’t expect was that they would get it tonight.

Wenger made the most important change of the night on 65 minutes when he brought on Theo Walcott for Sagna and shuffled Eboue to right-back. The combination of moves gave Walcott licence to have a go at Barcelona’s weakest player, Maxwell, as well as the opportunity for Eboue to drive us forward from deeper positions.

Both players were absolutely vital to our comeback as Eboue’s dribbling and Walcott’s blistering pace put Barcelona on the back foot for the first time. It also got us a goal when Bendtner placed a lovely pass in behind the defence and Walcott stuck it under Victor Valdes, who couldn’t have done any better, to make the score 2-1 on 70 minutes.

Rather unbelievably, the final 20 minutes were virtually all Arsenal. Barcelona made some chances, most notably an opportunity for Messi that was again well-blocked by Almunia. But for the first time in the match we were dictating the game and having more possession of the ball.

With five minutes to go Bendtner cleverly headed down a lofted cross to Fabregas and the captain was brought down in the box by Carlos Puyol. A penalty was given, a red card issued and we were given an opportunity to pull a game that could have been 5-0 after the first thirty minutes back to 2-2. Cesc took the opportunity, smashing his kick into the back of the net to level up the game.

I have many people saying that they didn’t believe that this should have been a penalty and that Puyol was unlucky to be sent off, but I just don’t understand this point of view. It was clear to me Puyol knew exactly what he was doing by placing his body where Cesc was going to strike the ball and the fact that the Barca captain made no attempt to play the ball himself supports that idea. It was a clever foul, if you can call it that, but the referee was right in penalising it and correct in brandishing the red card as he denied a clear chance on goal.

An inspirational Cesc played the rest of the game hobbling (we had already made three substitutions) after hurting himself in the collision with Puyol and the very bad news is that he has been ruled out for the rest of season with a fractured leg. He showed again what a little champion he is by putting in a gutsy and determined effort from start to finish. He rarely got his way among old friends (and the referee, who stupidly gave him a booking that would have ruled him out for the second leg for a perfectly good slide tackle) but he never let it get him down and eventually made the decisive contribution.

With Barca down to ten men for the final few minutes we pushed hard for a winning goal and although we didn’t find it, the final scoreline of 2-2 was brilliant considering the start we had made and the fact that we had come from two down. It was a testament to our mental qualities that we never dropped our heads, that the manager never lost his head and that we still created enough chances to get something out of the game.

While the fallout from the game is massive – to lose Fabregas, Gallas and Arshavin to serious injuries – I’m still hopeful about our chances of winning the league and optimistic about going to Barcelona and causing them some problems. Samir Nasri will be chomping at the bit to make his mark in Cesc’s position and with Song, Clichy, Denilson, Walcott, Eboue and Almunia all having strong games in the first-leg we have enough of a base to build on to be hopeful of doing something special at Camp Nou.

Wenger is a smart manager and he will have noted that a lack of pressure high-up the pitch when Barcelona had possession hurt us and will want that to change in the second leg.

Likewise he will know that we caused them a number of problems: we looked dangerous whenever our players dribbled at them with pace, Bendtner was virtually unstoppable in the air and when Barcelona’s high-pressing game ran out of puff we enjoyed some very nice possession. So there is reason for optimism even if Barcelona are clear favourites to go through.

The final thing I will say today is this: this Barcelona side are the best club team that I have ever seen in my time as a football observer and they were absolutely superb today. If our young squad can eventually replicate their style of play, as is Wenger’s vision, then we’re going to have one hell of a team in the next few years.

Thoughts?

Have your say on Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Barcelona by leaving a comment.