That Morning After Feeling

ESPN have been showing FA Cup Finals from the past thirty years as part of their build-up to the various rounds of this years competition. On Monday night they showed Arsenal v Newcastle Utd from 1998, I think, a year that Arsenal won the double. When Nicholas Anelka scored Arsenal's second goal the director chose to cut to the Arsenal bench where a comparatively youthful Arsene Wenger was smiling in the North London sunshine basking in his teams success. Fast forward to the Nou Camp last night and we saw a world weary man in an oversized puffa jacket haranguing the referee over yet another poor decision made in a big match.

We will never know whether or not Arsenal would have won the tie if Van Persie had stayed on the pitch, we do know that Arsenal would have won had Nicholas Bendtner been capable of scoring against opposition a little more testing than Orient. Barcelona racked up more than 700 passes and had 20 attempts on goal against Arsenal's none but matches turn on small incidents which become huge incidents in the context of a tie, season or career.

Listening to the post match radio phone-ins last night two things emerged, firstly the annoyance at the decision and secondly the agreement that Arsenal could not compete in the first half and were relying on their superior fitness to win through in the second half. I suspect that had Van Persie not been sent off then he would have been replaced by Arshavin much earlier in the second half with Bendtner replacing a very unfit Fabregas. But whether or not that would have changed the course of history we will never know.

What we do know is that Arsene Wenger said this was the final season in his current 'five year plan'. The culmination of his work with a core group of players who he believed would be in a position to challenge for honours and it's only ten days ago Arsenal supporters were talking of a quadruple of trophies this season, they now have to beat Manchester United twice to keep the dream alive of winning anything.

Barcelona's football last night for an hour was of a different class to Arsenal's and for most of the first half Arsenal struggled to get beyond the half way line, constantly pinned back by the quality of passing and movement they don't face every week in the Premiership. When Lionel Messi scored in first half injury time it came ironically from a mistake by the unfit Cesc Fabregas, former Arsenal defender Lee Dixon summed the goal up perfectly when he said, "Any other player than Messi would have either it that first time against Almunia or missed, but not Messi, he has to chip it over the keeper and then volley it in, all in one movement". As for Bendtner's miss he said simply, "My Granny has better first touch, dreadful."

Unfortunately the good things will be forgotten about in the short term but I suspect for many neutrals last night, sending off apart, there is the realisation that we were watching a very special team beating a very good team.