Don’t Worry, It’s Only Blackburn Rovers!

Greetings fellow Gooners!

Just a quick one today due to:

a) My being phenomenally late due to some other commitments that the world forgot to warn me about until I had 40 minutes to get there including getting ready and travelling for 30 minutes and;

b) There isn’t a great deal to say that hasn’t been said a thousand and one times and thus that we don’t already know!

Today we play Blackburn Rovers in yet another no-win situation. What could be a potential banana skin for us is exactly that, win lose or draw.

You see, if we win, well, that is exactly how it should be and no special credit will be received. We are the mighty Arsenal FC and they are lowly Blackburn, bottom of the Premier League and in a general state of turmoil. Add to that the fact that their fans are planning a protest prior to kick-off, running an online petition and generally baying for the blood of their manager and of course we should run them out of their own ground.

Or maybe we will get a draw. Yes, that should get the boo-boys out of their prams! Obviously a draw at Ewood Park would not be the end of the world, let alone the end of any title aspirations the players and staff may still be harbouring, but it would not be the win that we should so obviously be getting.

Of course, there is another possibility. That unspeakable chance that we come away with nothing thus requiring the thrusting of Wenger out of the back window of the coach home to be left for dead somewhere on the M6 due to the obvious failure of his new look side (some 2 weeks old), his transfer policy of buying experienced players (some 2 weeks old), his obvious delight at selling 3 of our most prized assets after training and nurturing them almost from his own teat and, last but not least, the fact that he obviously hasn’t been able to manage the team since David Dein left.

In fact, let’s get to the truth of the matter;We all know that Dein was not just responsible for buying and selling players and running the entire executive branch of the club but he also took all of the training sessions, picked the team, wrote the match programme, read out the announcements on match day, played centre-forward in a Thierry Henry disguise, cooked all of the players meals and even washed their kits and cleaned their boots with his magical winning dust!

Ok, obviously I am being a touch facetious here…We all know that he can’t cook!

But seriously folks, as I pointed out prior to the Dortmund game, we are smack bang in the middle of a run of seriously winnable games against teams that we really should be beating. I hope that tomorrow sees us walk away with a healthy victory and I am plumping for a 3-1 to the Arsenal with Mertesacker getting his name on the scoreboard as well as putting n a cracking performance to quieten a few errant mouths that, after two perfectly decent performances in a row, seem to be suggesting that he is worse than Squillaci!

In terms of the line-up we welcome back Song, Gervinho and Jenkinson from suspension and may just see Ramsey on the bench depending on a late fitness test. Jack and TV5 are obviously still out, as are Diaby, Rosicky, Squillaci and Miyaichi. With the midweek exploits still fresh in the legs, I would expect Arshavin to replace Benayoun and I think that we may get a peek at Santos so as not to confuse Gibbs by him playing two games in a row and possibly even Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain as I think that Theo may get a sit down for this one too.

So, the team may well look nothing like this:

Now, I have to say, that looks like a team with goals in it!

In other news:

Cesc claims NOT to have slammed our chances of winning any trophies ever again until the end of time, although anybody reading the comments section of my post on this topic will understand why I still have my doubts, regardless of how much Twittering he gets up to! Truth be told, I was furious yesterday and today I couldn’t really give a rats arse. There the much more important matter of actually winning a game rather than worrying about whether an ex-player thinks we will or not!

Manchester United are the latest club linked with a Middle East buyout, this time it is the Qatari royal family threatening the general wellbeing of football with a reported bid of £1.6bn. I don’t want to get too high up on my horse over this as, so far, it is appears to be rumour and counter-rumour. Not only that, but I cannot help but wonder how the likes of Chelsea, United and Citeh get a “Sugar Daddy” whilst we get the “Gingerbread Man”!

Wenger claims that his experiment with a zonal marking systemfor corners is working so far but nothing concrete has been decided regarding whether or not it is here to stay. Time will tell on that one, but, whilst we haven’t actually conceded from a corner yet this season, our goals conceded record so far leaves a lot to be desired to say the least and so one assumes that the experiment needs to show fruit in other areas too and fast if it to stand a chance. Personally I think that man to man marking at set pieces is too easy to break down for the attacking side unless you have very mobile defenders and so I hope that the lads get past the teething troubles as quickly as possible to give this new system a real chance.

Yossi Benayoun claims that his loan move was not the last minute shock that it appeared to be and that we were finalising the details about a week beforehand. All well and good, but it does beg the obvious question: If we knew we were signing him so long beforehand, how on earth did we end up taking him without a medical?!

Nicklas Bendtner is currently doing the media rounds with his latest Arsenal “revelation”. He claims he won’t be back unless he gets assurances of regular football from the club. First things first, we own you sunbeam and you will come back if we tell you too and you won’t if we don’t want you. Secondly, I hope that you keep your original promise of never coming back and good riddance too. Thirdly, shut your trap for two fecking minutes and give your arse a chance, would you! You might have been played desperately out of position, never really given a fighting chance to prove yourself and even been horribly misquoted over the whole “best player in the world” debacle (I hate to say it, but I saw the original of that interview and another subsequent interview and that “claim” was taken so out of context it was actually a disgrace to journalism, twice!) but has it never occurred to you that the fact that you spend more time talking about playing football than actually playing it might be riddled with all the clues you need?!?!

Still not convinced Nick? Well, try your own words for size:

“I have rented a good house and am probably going to spend most of my time there, as I did in London, and then spend time with my family when I am not playing football, so it’s going to be okay.”

Anybody else starting to think that he has literally zero friends in the entire world?!

And on that note, all that remains to be said is:

Come on you experienced Blackburn Rovers whipping Gooonnnneeerrrsssss!

 

Testing Times and Doubtful T(h)omases!

I have to say that, in the past three decades at least, I have not witnessed a time when, in the great scheme of things, games could be more meaningless and yet so damned important.

I know that there have been much more important games over that time such as the Champions League final against Farcalona, title run-ins, the odd FA Cup final, even those last few games of the Invincible season when you just knew we were going to throw away the chance to rewrite the history books away with a stunning reversal by Leicester City at Highbury! Conversely, there have been a few much less important games along the way too. The last three of four games of most seasons tend to provide that excruciating feeling of utter pointlessness regardless of how much we looked like we may actually be there fighting for the title until the death in the preceding weeks!

But I digress, as usual, from the main point that I am trying to make here! Sorry to bring this up, but as I am sure you are all keenly aware, the real successes that we have enjoyed in that period were quite some time ago now and a lot has changed since those heady days. Case in point, we were genuinely relieved when we beat Swansea 1-0 at home on Saturday and are all getting a little pre-match tension going before heading off to play Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League on Tuesday night.

In truth, I don’t remember a time when things were, for all the best will in the world, so uncertain in terms of direction, ability, desire or even the chance of us actually winning something. Put simply, we don’t really know how the new boys will fit in, we are unsure of what system Wenger has in mind for the team or even if it will change at all and we are even less sure that he could survive the next couple of months if we do something foolish like troll off to Germany tomorrow and get a good old shoeing! All in all things are a little up in the air and a good thump down to earth is the last thing we need. If there is any team in our Champions League group that can provide that thump, it may well be Borussia Dortmund.

Key players for them include: Sebastian Kehl, captain, a fantastic tackler and very good passer of the ball, Mats Hummel, not just a good central defender but also a real threat from set pieces along with central defensive partner Subotic (if he plays), Robert Lewandowski, a proper handful of a centre forward who, apart from being fairly lethal from short range, long range or with his head, also makes a habit of providing the kind of well-timed, defence-splitting runs which the likes of Mario Götze, clearly amongst the very best young attacking midfielders in Europe right now, simply love to provide defence-splitting passes for him to get on the end of.

There are warning signs here. Our defence will have to be on their toes or the creative attacking midfielders of Dortmund could well do some serious damage. Having watched a fair bit of Dortmund last season, it seems that our defence will have to begin from the front too. The Dortmund midfielders tend to drop deep to get the ball but, in a three behind the front man Farcalona-style setup, they move the ball very quickly from defence or defensive midfield to the penalty area. Make no mistake, this is not going to be an easy fixture, certainly not as easy as we would like it to be given the general state of things right now.

In reality we have never really fared that well against German sides and, whilst they may not have the stature or reputation of the likes of Bayern Munich, this Dortmund side do play fairly attractive, very attack-minded football, a lot like us to be fair. They too come into the game off the back of a dodgy result, losing at home for the first time in 18 games to Hertha Berlin and playing, well, terribly in the process. They are playing in the Champions League for the first time since the 2002-03 season but are doing so as champions of the Bundesliga and, to be fair, are a good side with a lot of young players, all of whom appear to be as technically gifted as our own, with an average age of just 24, one could be excused for thinking that this should be a team for the future and yet here they are, Champions of Germany. Of course, all of this serves to bring yet more unwanted pressure on our own young players to produce the goods on Tuesday night or facing getting “out-kidded”!

In terms of our team, we have the usual mass of bodies queuing up in the treatment room. Rambo Myarse, (sorry, Ramsey) hobbled out of training on Monday with an ankle injury, Jack Wilshere is already out until the end of September at least although word from the club seems to suggest we could be more likely to see him pull on the mighty red shirt sometime around the end of October. Add to this the two T(h)omases who are both still out, Rosicky as usual and Vermaelan, well, as usual too, and then tack on Diaby who, believe it or not, is still actually paid a salary to play football, and we are looking pretty thin on the ground. Jenkinson returns from suspension but did not make Wenger’s 18-man squad whilst all 5 of the new shiny things got seats on the plane although Santos is still lacking match fitness having not played a competitive match since the Copa America almost two months ago and will therefore be unlikely to get a place in the starting lineup.

We will also welcome back the effervescent Gervinho as well as what could well turn out to be a pivotal role in the shape of Alexandre Song. If Dortmund do indeed have a weakness, I believe that it is in their full backs, Piszczek and Löwe. If Gervinho can get at them like he did against the full backs of Udinese, we may well come out of this with a share of the points or even three all of them. Of equal importance will be Song’s ability to stay in position and break up their attacks before we are praying that Kos hasn’t forgotten there is a game going on or Mertesacker finds himself trying to play catch-up with a Dortmund player he probably won’t catch up with!

I think the team is likely to line up in a much more conventional than usual 4-4-2 due to the injuries to Aaron and Jack and thus expect it will look something like this:

We have to hope that Mertesacker’s knowledge of Dortmund will be put to full use and as such we can also hope that he learned as much from his Bremen side getting beaten by them 2-0 away from home last season as he did when Bremen won 2-0 at home.

In truth, this is not the type of game that we as fans or we as a club really need right now. There are clear dangers here and everybody will have to perform well for us to get a result. If we lose concentration we will be punished and if we show the sort of profligacy in front of goal as we did against Swansea, we will be lucky to get out with a point.

All of that said, without precisely this type of game to go and win, how would we rebuild that fragile, shattered confidence?!

On top of that, we have a secret weapon, something cunning and devious, something that they do not have and something that they will not be expecting…

EXPERIENCE!

Come On You Champions League Challenging Gooners!!!

Lost

Ok, so the title isn’t too imaginative, but let’s be totally honest, we did lose, we looked lost on the pitch and we appear more and more lost as a club.

I am sure that you all saw the “game”, but a quick recap should get us all on the same page. I think that we can literally do this by the numbers:

8-2 – That was the final score today at The Theatre of Dreams.

Ok, I know how much fun it is to call it “The Theatre of Debts”, but I am actually going to pay a far superior, far more willing, far more cunning, far more organised and far more talented Manchester United side the minimum respect of actually using their correct and full names. Maybe it will be just for today, but they have earned my respect with their performance. Anyway, whilst we enjoy nothing more than having a good laugh at them roaming around winning trophies and titles, the following two sets of numbers may actually tell a rather important tale:

18.3, 16.5, 16 – This is how much United have spent on players this transfer window, depending on which sources you believe.

1.1, 4, 7, 34, 25 – This is how much Arsenal has reportedly recouped in the transfer window.

This means that United have spent 50.8m on players whilst we have sold 68.1m. If they are a “spending club” that surely, beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt, must render us a “selling club”.

28, 22, 42, 64, 67, 70, 82, 90 – Those were the times of the goals for Manchester United. The exact moments where we contrived to allow them the courtesy of recording the heaviest league defeat of our fine club since the “bad old days” of 1896 and the very same moments when they gladly, ruthlessly, joyfully accepted our kindness.

45, 74 – Those were the times when we showed that, once we could actually get the ball to either the wasted on the wings Walcott or RVP, we could actually appear slightly dangerous.

27 – That was when our frankly nervous looking captain scuffed the ball from the penalty spot – gifting the fairly ordinary looking De Gea a penalty save to add to his scrapbook of footballing memories – choosing to take a run up that started closer to the touchline than the goal and never looking like he wanted the ball in the first place.

77 – That was when Carl Jenkinson got the obligatory “red card for the new boy” that all Arsenal players strive so hard to get in their first game or three. Surely this means that he is simply a Gooner legend in the making? After his performance today, an appeal has been lodged and the jury is back out. Udinese and Manchester United proved to be two totally different prospects after all.

More numbers? Ok, let’s try these for size…

253 & 260 – Notice anything odd about these numbers? No? Well you should because those are the total ages of the two teams that started the match. Yes, that’s rights folks, even without the injured “experienced veterans” Song, Gervinho, Vermaelan and Sagna, (23, 24, 25 and 28) our frighteningly young team got thrashed 8-2, and damned well thrashed they were, by a YOUNGER TEAM.

So, excuse Number 1 in the Arsene handbook of excuses goes right out of the window never to return, one assumes.

I for one am glad. Honestly, I am sick and tired of hearing about experience or lack of it, it confuses the issue and, when push came to shove, we got shoved.

So what actually went wrong? Well, the following is my opinion and mine alone. I do not ask for your confirmation and equally I do not ask for your condemnation. This is a game of opinions after all!

Traore is not ever going to be a great left back, defend, track back, mark or get organised appear to be a little out of reach for him. The trouble starts when you realise that he cannot actually beat his man, either with the ball or just for pace alone, and he cannot cross it either. Whilst not being able to cross a ball has been a basic requirement of Arsenal full backs for some years now, it isn’t enough to convince me that he should be anywhere near our squad, let alone the ONLY back up to the injury prone Gibbs who, let’s be fair, isn’t exactly showering himself in glory when he DOES get out of the treatment room.

Coquelin played today and, quite honestly, showed why he does not appear to be in the short term plans of Arsene. I am aware that there are others who claim that he is better than Frimpong, almost as good as Song, ready for a taste of first team action, but today was not that day and certainly proved as such. In his defence (about the only effective defence Arsenal had all day) he should not have even been needed to play after the warning signs of about 4 seasons ago showed us the desperate need for a couple of top class centre backs. Had we had one of those at least, we could have thought about playing Djourou in the DM position saving Coquelin from walking into his debut shirt and out onto the killing field.

Arshavin is going backwards. His pace left him and he looked simply dreadful for it. Now he appears a little leaner, a little fitter and a little faster again and, guess what, we have the old Arshavin back again. No, not the Arshavin clone that turned up against Liverpool, the Arshavin that runs into blind alleys, refuses to pass the ball, can’t shoot and can’t track back. Quite frankly he was lucky to even be on the pitch after his assault on Young came quite so soon after his high and late effort on Phil Jones had already earned him a well deserved yellow.

Ramsey is looking like a player not yet ready to take on this level of responsibility. When Vieira left we wondered how we would cope, but a little Spaniard showed that boys can be men and stepped up to the plate. Ramsey clearly is not of the same mentality as Cesc and I genuinely believe that we are risking his confidence in the longer term by continuing to play him in such an important role.

Rosicky, oh dear, Rosicky. I love Tomas Rosicky, let’s make that clear. A fabulous player on his day but that day may well have gone down sluices of the treatment room. I feared that playing the full 45 minutes against Udinese and then asking him to play at Old Trafford so soon afterwards may be a step too far. I did question whether or not this may be the case in my previous article, although I am bitterly disappointed to have been proven correct.

Now, there are those that will point to the injuries and suspensions list – Gibbs, Sagna, Vermaelan, Song, Gervinho, Frimpong, Diaby, even Bendtner if you like, but in reality the majority of them would not get in the Manchester United side. Seriously, Vermaelan and Sagna would almost certainly get some games as squad players, but I do not see their Manchester United counterparts getting dislodged by either of them…And they are the BEST of what we had missing.

I am not calling for the heads of any of our players as such; I am simply saying that looking at whether or not we have sufficient cover for them is NOT going to solve the problems. We need players that are going to COMPETE with them. For example, Traore cannot push Gibbs to perform better under threat of losing his place. This is true all over the team.

Similarly, I am not going to call for the head of Wenger, the buying out of Stan or even the return of David Dein. These are not the solutions that we need- What we need is better quality, more experienced winners to push the youngsters along and help get us some dearly needed stability and points in the meantime.

What I and many other Arsenal fans like me ARE calling for is some common sense and less BS. The quality players ARE out there, the need IS there, the squad is NOT so young and inexperienced that we should expect less of them and the experience being gained by those young players right now is NOT invaluable.

And that my friends, is exactly what I have been working my way towards throughout this missive. These youngsters have been getting their souls and their hearts broken year in, year out, tournament in, tournament out, and, aside from an average Italian side that it appears we may well have helped to look better than they really were, right now week in, week out. Does ANYBODY think that is good for the development of a young player? Seriously, can it be helping any of their careers to be on the end of an 8-2 trouncing, the worst defeat in more than a century of league football? They are in the Arsenal history books now, and for all the wrong reasons.

Yes, we have Jack to come back, but why is he out? Apparently and unsurprisingly, he was overplayed last season. So, even when he comes back, are we going to ask him play 50-60 games this season? It would not make a lot of sense to do so, so where is the backup? I don’t mean playing Song AND Frimpong either, I mean REAL backup. I am talking about a first class central midfielder with the ability to pass the ball and tackle hard. All the top class leagues in Europe alone and we seriously, with over 100m to spend, cannot find ONE?!

That Juan Mata chap looked ok yesterday it has to be said. Weren’t we linked with him?! Oh yes, that’s right, we were waiting until we lost our best player and captain and a little French muppet BEFORE buying in a replacement.

Wesley Sneijder would have been a perfect fit in my opinion but the wages cap seems to have put paid to that. That would be the very same wages cap that seems entirely responsible for the loss of Clichy, Na$ri and to a certain degree, Fabregas. I have it from a reliable source that Wenger wanted to offer him 120k a week and the board turned down his request.

And that, in essence, is what I believe is wrong with our fine club right now. We are reactive and not proactive. We are looking for the replacements after we lose the player, not before. We have a wages cap that literally stops us from being able to compete. I know, I know, it is a business and we don’t have a sugar daddy, but we do have a painfully large amount of money in the bank and have taken a large chunk off of the wages bill. Surely there is room for a little movement from the board, or are we in the middle of an asset stripping session by Stan? Could it actually be that all the years of laughing at Manchester United and the Glaziers was just us ordering up our very own serving of just desserts? The Glaziers do not appear to be affecting Sir Alex Ferguson and his ability to buy great and fairly expensive players and they certainly do not appear to be sliding down the league table faster than Arshavin can waste good possession either!

There are already those fans out there claiming that this result will just give the “doomers” more ammunition. Guys, we got stuffed 8-2 today by a younger team and clearly much better team…

DAMN RIGHT IT GIVES THEM THE AMMUNITION.

Frankly, it holds the gun for them too.

Time to let them have their moment. Don’t worry, they will all have their broad grins and their singing voices when we win the Premier League and Champions League double this season…

…or maybe, just maybe, they have a point.

Anyway, to finish up, this was what Arsene said after the game:

“No (I will not quit). Of course it hurts. It’s humiliating. But you could see we had not recovered physically from Wednesday. They had class and they punished us. I know that in England when you lose a game signings are always the solution. We had eight players out today. You feel always humiliated when you concede eight goals. It was a terrible day for us. Man United had class but every single shot in the first half went in.”

To which I would offer these responses:

4 of the players that started on Wednesday were not available today so that is 4 fully fresh players you had in the side. Is it our fault that the replacements that we have aren’t good enough (yet?) to play n the Premier League?

Not recovered from Wednesday is a result of not buying the players that we so obviously needed last year and thus inviting the inevitable end of season collapse that required us to play on Wednesday in the first place.

Of the 8 players we had out today, how many would actually be first team choices? Sagna, Vermaelan, Song, Gervinho and Wilshere. Two of those are out suspended and we have had three red cards in three league games so maybe it would be a good idea to try and instill a little discipline in the side?!

Manchester United did see a lot of their shots on target today, but surely that is the inevitable result of giving away a free kick on the edge of the penalty area just about every single time they attacked! Again, some discipline is clearly required. Maybe having somebody experienced enough in defence to know that you simply cannot go flying into every single tackle, especially in and around the box might help!

As for feeling humiliated, I do not even want to get started on that one. And I won’t. Because this has gone on for far too long already!

So, until the next time when we will have filled at least three key positions on the pitch and everything will look rosy again.

Ooh to be a Gooner!

 

Dig deep, bring home those precious three points!

There is not a lot you can add to the title of this post, it’s an absolute must for us to bring home maximum points later on this afternoon. Last three weeks have not been great for us, infact we only managed a draw at home against Sunderland which to me was certainly opportunity missed to get even closer to the Mancs.

No point to dwell on those disappointments now, I suppose,  time to move on we can still challenge for the Premier League tittle so let’s give it our best shot. Injuries are piling up again Abou Diaby will now miss the game with a groin strain which he probably sustained during training, they reckon it’s only short term and it’s a matter of days. Diaby is definitely not having a good season, he failed to impress so far and is out injured again. So it looks like Denilson will play alongside Wilshere. Denilson in definitely not a defensive midfielder we all know that but he hasn’t played a lot of games this season so let’s get behind him even though he hasn’t been that great, perhaps he needs playing time to improve, he certainly doesn’t look like the player from last season. We will definitely miss our backbone of Cesc, Song, Djourou and Walcott but I honestly belive that we have enough in the tank to beat The Baggies and make up for what happened at The Emirates earlier in the season.

I would like for Nasri to start in the middle this time around, he seems less effective on the left, Bendtner out wide with Van Persie in the middle and Arshavin on the right. With this selection Wilshere and Denilson behind Nasri. With Djourou out Squilliaci will pair Koscienly at the center of our defence so it looks like a complete French outlet there with Sanga and Clichy on the flanks.

Baggies will try their best to gain points themselves they are certainly not safe yet, there are two points away from relegation zone, so they will give us a game no doubt. I’m confident though that with our quality we can take all three points and keep our title run very much alive. We know we can go level on points with Man U and hopefully for a change we can take this opportinty and use it to our advantage.

We need to dig deep, no room for error and complacancy, every Priemier Lague game becomes a Cup game now.  I would like to sit down later on tonight with a smile on my face, knowing that we are still strongly in the title race. I’m sure the away fans will get behind whoever runs out onto that pitch in few hours time as always they have been really great this season, hats off to them.  I’ll be doing my bit from home, so let’s get beihind them all and hope for we can bring those prercious three points back home.

COME ON YOU REDS…!!!

Adibal should of been sent off, NOT Van Persie!

We haven’t played well enough perhaps to win the game, however I believe justice has not been done last night and FIFA & UEFA should be ashamed of themselves. They make it look as if this game can not function without fairness and honesty. Barthelona players dived left right and center, tackled and got away with it. Our players on the other hand got booked one by one, I may regret saying this but somehow I believe football is corrupted from the top including almighty Barthelona!

Now you tell me who should of been sent off, even if Van Persie did hear the whistle for the offside (no one really looked at this because he was sent off but was it really offside?) it was a split second when he took the shot. He didn’t boot it sky high it was a controlled shot towards the goal and to me this is allowed in the modern game because it’s so quick. Don’t we forget that Chelsea was not given three blatant penalties when they played them two seasons back I believe, so it definitely looks like favouritism is well among UEFA especially when to comes to those cheats from Barthelona. We know we didn’t play well especially in the first half but that sending off changed the whole game.

I’m only hoping the lads will bounce up from this, a tough game awaits us on Saturday now, with a trip to rainy land of Mancunia. A win there would certainly lift those wounded spirits and I’m really proud of the lads after last night even though it was very disappointing result. We need to get behind them they certainly need us now more than ever. Gunning for two two trophies from now on, let’s hope we can bring one home.

Bracelona preview – Do we sacrifice or plan ahead

It has been an odd couple of weeks for Arsenal. In the space of 14 days Arsene Wenger’s men have lurched from quadruple hopefuls to staring down the barrel of another 6 years without a trophy; from favourites to overturn Manchester United in the title race to no hopers and back again. But there has always been one constant lurking on the horizon, and now it is upon them.

The Champions League 2nd leg tie against Barcelona has permeated every thought of Wenger since that dramatic night 23 days ago, make no mistakes about that. Ask any Arsenal fan if they would prefer to have beaten Birmingham or Barcelona and the answers will no doubt have put the Gunners through to the next round of the Champions League despite that trophy-less run hanging heavy on their minds.

The Catalan club are of a similar mind-set as well. Because this is more than a match to decide the better team on the night, it is a battle to decide the finest purveyors of a type of football most others can only admire from afar – and Wenger more than Guardiola is eager to have his own approach to the game justified, if not with trophies, then with the scalp of the finest club in the world.

With this in mind, both managers have had their thoughts twisted as they attempt to outwit one another off the pitch.

Wenger has included the injured Robin Van Persie in his squad for the trip to the Nou Camp, having previously being advised by the club’s medical staff that he will be unavailable for the match.

The Frenchman pleads his innocence, suggesting he is “very bad” at mind games, but has had his fingers burnt in the past, most notably with Cesc Fabregas, and would only consider such an action for a game of this magnitude. His presence in Barcelona has more than a whiff of psychological warfare to it, especially given the absence of Barcelona’s two first-choice centre backs and the blank drawn against Sunderland last weekend.

“This morning he was unlikely to travel, but he wanted to go, so he had a test and it was quite positive.” He insisted.

“We will not take a gamble in a game of such importance. It will be fit or not fit. Personally I would like him to play if possible, but I will only play him if he is 100% fit.”

If Wenger was busy trying to out-think Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola, then the same was happening in Northern Spain – and Guardiola had his sights set on Jack Wilshere.

“We have many types of players like him (Wilshere) in the second team” Said Guardiola.

He is not the type of manager to criticise opponents, let alone single out a member of the opposition, so his comments raised a few eyebrows. Wilshere was excellent at the Emirates against his side and this will not have passed him by. It may have been a fairly innocuous comment about his age, but pressure does funny things to people, and this game is as big as it gets.

Elsewhere for Arsenal Theo Walcott and Alex Song have both already been ruled out, and the loss of the former will be felt most. Lionel Messi described Walcott as “the most dangerous” player Arsenal have prior to the first leg, and while his performance in that game was lacking, he hurt Barcelona last year and would have been hopeful of doing that same again this time around.

Wilshere has managed to shake off a knock he picked up against Sunderland while Fabregas has a “90% chance” of playing against his former side. Place a free bet in the hope that the defensive errors that marred the Carling Cup final will have to be ironed out, and Johan Djourou and Laurent Koscielny will be at the heart of an Arsenal defence charged with keeping the likes of Pedro, David Villa and Lionel Messi at bay.

With Gerard Pique and Carles Puyol already ruled out, Sergio Busquets and Eric Abidal will likely step into the side who have no other injury worries, aside from their manager who has had treatment on a back complaint but insists he will be in the dugout tonight.

Last season’s 4-1 defeat at the hands of Barcelona will be at the forefront of Arsenal’s mind as they emerge from the tunnel tonight, and they will have to learn the lessons of the first half display of their opponents from the first leg. Don’t forget those Free bets and be ready for this one, it should be a cracker if the previous three encounters between the two are anything to go by.

They will have to be patient and understand there will be large portions of the game where they will not have the ball, while maintaining a direct attacking edge when they do. If they can, then Wenger can finally put one of his personal demons to bed.

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