Barca’s Clasico win consolation for our Euro exit

FOLLOWING the massive anti-climax of last week’s Champions League exit, I was grateful that Spurs’ comical FA Cup curtain call presented us Gooners with arelaxing, stress free weekend.

Between the Grand National, the golf and wall to wall football, I was planted in front of the television not having to move a muscle from midday to midnight, other than some frantic thumb work with the remote control.

Watching the massed ranks of Madrid’s quarter of a billion quid’s worth of individual footballing talent, being made to look so mundane by Barca only served to confirm that there was no shame in our European exit.

The absence of so many star turns (Fabregas, Van Persie, Arshavin, Song, Gallas et al) was always likely to have an inhibiting effect. But perhaps the biggest disappointment was that the Gunners appeared not to have learned their lesson from the first leg. Without Pique and their talismanic skipper Puyol, Barca’s unfamiliar looking defence were ripe for being rattled by a fast-tempo, Premier League style, pressing game.

Instead of which, we were once again guilty of allowing our hosts far too much time on the ball, gifting them time to settle, so they could calmly pass it out from the back for Xavi and Messi to weave their wonderous magic. Mind you, in Song’s absence, there wasn’t exactly a superfluity of tackle relishing Gunners on the pitch!

However, after somehow taking the lead it might’ve been a different story if Diaby had passed right to Walcott, instead of left on the counter a few moments later.

The Catalan giants might have struggled to recover from conceding two in such quick succession…

Without a leader out on the park, driving us forward, trying to restrict the home team to playing in their half of the pitch, we stood back and admired our hosts. This might as well have been an invitation to Messi to conduct the Gunners’ Requiem mass. Sadly Lionel duly obliged having us hung, drawn and quartered with Arsene’s head on his wall as a trophy, in the space of his 20-minute hat-trick masterclass.

If the Spanish side are destined to again be crowned kings of Europe in Madrid come May, we might prostrate ourselves at Messi’s talented feet, but no less a factor in Guardiola’s success is the atypical team ethic, engendered in a dozen or so homegrown stars, half of whom are Catalan borne & bred.

On paper Chelsea are the only one of the three squads that have the look of genuine title contenders and Man Utd’s draw on Sunday only lends weight to this argument. Yet I suspect that the Blues’ conviction might come under scrutiny over the course of the last four weeks. Much like ourselves and the majority of other Premier League clubs, it takes little to shatter the wafer thin veneer of unity, compared to deep dressing room bonds forged since childhood.

After our demoralising mauling in Spain, the question is whether the Gunners can rediscover the spirit and determination necessary to capitalise on any unexpected results, with no better test than tonight’s match at White Hart Lane. I’ve been teasing my Spurs pals for weeks, with the ultimate ‘rock & a hard place’ poser — what if they play Chelsea on Saturday, needing a win to pip City to that highly-prized Champions League spot, but knowing it might be handing us the title on a plate? Doubtless it would be Man Utd who’d be most likely to profit and on current form Man City pipping them for 4th.

Nevertheless, taking into account all the adverse circumstances, I’m just delighted to have reached this stage in the season, still able to savour such delicious fantasies.