Lionel Messi is in my opinion the greatest footballer to ever grace the game. At the Nou Camp he scored four goals to dump us out of Europe, demoralised, knackered, starstruck and probably injured just to add the cherry on top of the cake.

The starting team was the strongest it could be considering all the injuries. Almunia, Sagna, Silvestre, Vermaelen, Clichy, Denilson, Diaby, Nasri, Eboue, Rosicky and Bendtner: a team with no cutting edge quality that the likes of Cesc, Arshavin, van Persie et al. have.

Despite this we took the lead, Diaby played in Theo who did his best to make his pass to Nicklas Bendtner as bad as humanly possible, Bendtner got a shot off, Valdes saved but the persistent Dane toe poked in the rebound, game well and truly on and Arsenal ahead in the tie.

From then on it was the Messi show, his first goal was incredible – just how he hit that shot in the direction he did was seemingly unnatural, He is probably the only player that could make it look so simple and easy. His second goal was another lovely finish, he was never going to miss and Barca were back in front, you sensed it was game over. That feeling was made sure when Messi raced free and dinked the ball over the head of Almunia – he was just too good, incredible, forget Maradonna, Pele and Eusabio, Lionel Messi is not just the new king, he is THE king and there is no shame in being beaten by him all on his own. His final goal was eye of the needle stuff.

Take Messi, Ibrahimovic, Xavi, Pedro and Alves out of that Barcelona team and the sides would have been equals, football doesn’t work like that though. Its what this team aspire too, the little Argentinian is who every player aspires to be as good as, if not in real life then on the PlayStation, at times he makes it look so easy. Now can someone that small with that amount of humility be so good?

Anyway, less of the praise.

The criticism in some quarters is completely out of order, yes, some players let us down – then again these players probably wouldn’t have started had we had players fit. The players aren’t responsible for that, its the back room staff that are responsible for that and those problems need to be addressed in the summer, if it means a new medical team so be it – no expense should be spared. It also sounded like the boss is thinking he needs a larger squad, not only that, it needs to be of a higher quality too. He is going to have to pull something really special off to get the right blend of youth and experience, not just any youth, the clubs own produced youth. Is there going to be a chance to introduce all these promising youngsters? They are lauded time and time again but can they make the final step? Very few will by my reckoning.

The week off we now have is a good thing though, the importance of trying to get as many players fit as possible over-weighs the disadvantage of having a game in hand. Every game we go without losing is a season decider, win its still on, lose, its all over.

We went toe to toe with the very, very best. We lost. Nothing wrong with that, we fought for longer than many gave us credit for, we took the lead in the Nou Camp… one day we will be that good, how long away that day is nobody knows. The potential is still there, some dead wood does need cutting out though. Anyway, this is the sort of the stuff we need to sort in the summer.

Keep the faith, nobody would have beaten Barca in those two games, nobody.

Til tomorrow
————

To book an £8 tour of the Emirates Stadium click the banner below for information. Its well worth a visit and you definitely get your moneys worth. There’s still some Armoury Square stones left for your personalisation too, again, click the banner for details.