Spanish media laud top Gunners

THERE are four dedicated sports tabloid newspapers in Spain. Two unashamedly row in behind Real Madrid, the other two behind Barcelona.

In British football terms, it would be as if The Sun was a rabid Chelsea news organ while the Daily Mirror was a Manchester United bulletin.

Statistics show that when Real Madrid loses a match, Marca and AS, its two dedicated newspapers, enjoy bigger sales the following day.

People want to know what happened. They love to wallow in a crisis. Sales, as you can imagine, must have been big yesterday for Sport and Mundo Deportivo, Barcelona’s unofficial newsletters.

Both newspapers, which devoted 16 pages each, were sympathetic to Barcelona’s plight, after the 2-1 defeat to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday night.

While agreeing that Barcelona had thrown it away, the Spanish media were complimentary about Arsenal and questioned whether everyone had not got a little carried away with the “best team in the world” tag that has attached itself to Barça.

El País was enthusiastic about the progress made by the Arsenal team since the last meeting between the sides.

“Wenger’s kids have got better and better as footballers, they have definitively lost their respect for Barcelona, who yesterday were more administrative, less ambitious or, at the least, more vulnerable and less punishing.

“Arsenal have stopped being the best losers, the ideal opposition for Barcelona. Last night they fought like champions, forcing the azulgrana to an extreme physical and tactical effort. They didn’t give up even when the night looked at its bleakest.”

Marca picked out three keys to the result: Barcelona’s failure to take their chances; Víctor Valdés’s error for the first Arsenal goal; and the home side’s effectiveness on the counterattack.

“But let no one be fooled, this Barcelona is as strong as in years gone by,” it added. “The proof was in their overpowering first half.’’

José Sámano in El Mundo felt Barça had crucially failed to adapt. “Barcelona didn’t change track and stuck to their conventional script. But what’s clear is that they didn’t know how to close out the game when they should have.”

El País noted that Barcelona had outpassed Arsenal by 773 to 423 and that seven Barcelona players made more passes than the most prolific Gunners passer, Cesc Fábregas.

Marca highlighted Barcelona’s dependency on Carles Puyol, noting that all four of the team’s defeats this season had been in the absence of their captain. Puyol is an injury doubt for the second leg and the Barcelona defence will definitely be without Gerard Piqué, who picked up a yellow card in London.

Writing in El Mundo, Paco Cabezas, praised Arsenal as worthy winners and criticised Pep Guardiola for his decision-making.

“If Arsenal won, in my view, deservedly, it was thanks to their noble resistance, the drive of Wilshere (at times, a double for Scholes), to the tremendous class of their attackers and to the unbreakable faith of a coach who kept bringing on forwards while Guardiola turned to Keita and took off Villa, the best azulgrana. The Barcelona coach, at the moment when he should have been taking steps forward, opted to fall back. A fatal decision. Pep got it wrong.”

El Mundo felt that Guardiola’s over-reliance on his first XI had left his team a little jaded but recognised that Arsenal had exploited their weaknesses. “Exemplary Arsenal showed that the best Barça team in history is human. Watch out for the second leg.”

In the same paper, Julián Ruiz observed that “in the first match in the entire season in which the ‘best team in the world’, according to Barcelona fans, played against European opposition of certain quality, but not very aggressive, Guardiola’s team was ruffled and showed their weakness, their vulnerable inconsistency.

The idea that La Liga is the best league in the world, he added “fell apart in a single trip to London”.

Ruiz’s take on things is that Barcelona are a team descending into crisis. “In the second half, Barcelona were a team without spark or fluidity, a toy without batteries — the team was like a deflated doll.

“Messi looks to have lost the thread of his dynamite and Iniesta, the poor guy, looks like he is sleep-walking. I don’t want to sound too opportunistic but I was ridiculed when I said Barcelona are a worse side than last year and above all, two years ago.

“In this country everything has to be black and white; Barcelona are in crisis, that’s the truth.”