Beating Barcelona offered glimpse of a future that never arrived for Arsenal

Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere challenges Barcelona’s Lionel Messi in the Champions League round of 16 clash at the Emirates, 10 years ago today. Picture: Shaun Botterill/Getty

Ten years ago tonight, Arsenal enjoyed one of their greatest results, delivering a performance that combined the swashbuckling elegance Arsene Wenger demanded with the defiance and resilience so often missing in the second half of the Frenchman’s 22-year reign.

This was the night Arsenal famously came from behind to stun a Barcelona team regarded by many as the greatest club outfit of the last 25 years, a Lionel Messi-inspired side who would go on to win a second Champions League in three years by delivering a final masterclass to humble Manchester United 3-1 at Wembley three months later. Arsenal’s 2-1 win over this galaxy of superstars at their peak was — and remains — their greatest night at the Emirates Stadium.

That February would prove a defining month for that Arsenal side.

It began in farcical fashion as the Gunners managed to surrender a 4-0 halt-time lead to draw 4-4 at Newcastle — a trick they briefly threatened to repeat against Leeds only last Sunday.

The month ended with a calamitous mix-up between goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny and Laurent Koscielny gifting Birmingham City striker Obafemi Martins a last-gasp winner in the League Cup final, a result that would trigger the collapse of a season that had promised so much.

That promise was best illustrated by Jack Wilshere, a 19-year-old sensation who would play 49 games in that breakthrough season. And on that magical February night, he looked every bit as gifted as opposite numbers Andres Iniesta and Xavi.

Fittingly, he would play an important part in the build-up to Andrei Arshavin’s stunning winner against Pep Guardiola’s men, a typically probing and perfectly weighted pass finding Cesc Fabregas in space. Two piercing passes and one shot later, the ball was resting in the Barcelona net. Wengerball at its finest.

On the back of that man-of-the-match performance, no-one would have imagined that a decade later Wilshere would be plying his trade in the Championship, trying to rebuild his career at a Bournemouth side currently in the final play-off spot. 

On Saturday, a tiring Wilshere was substituted after 66 minutes in an uninspiring draw against Nottingham Forest. He will now hope to have done enough to secure a start in tomorrow’s home game with Rotherham.

His is a cautionary tale, one current Arsenal starlets Bukayo Saka, who again excelled in Arsenal’s 4-2 win over Leeds at the weekend, and Emile Smith Rowe would do well to pay heed to.

Injury was Wilshere’s chief tormentor, an ankle problem suffered at the start of the 2011-12 season ruling him out for 17 months.

An unused sub when Arsenal ended a nine-year silverware drought by beating Hull 3-2 to win the FA Cup in 2014, Wilshere’s most memorable contribution to their successful defence of that crown was singing an anti-Tottenham song in the victory parade after a 4-0 win over Aston Villa. An FA misconduct charge predictably followed.

Two loan spells at Bournemouth later, Wilshere finally left Arsenal for good — moving to West Ham in July 2018, where he only made 19 appearances across three seasons before rejoining the Cherries on a short-term deal last month, the immense promise of his teenage years sadly unfulfilled.

That last-16 victory over a Barcelona outfit that had threatened to overrun them in the first half at the Emirates a decade ago looked a coming-of-age moment for that Arsenal side. Fabregas and Robin van Persie, who cancelled out David Villa’s opener that night, were approaching their peak, Samir Nasri was in the form of his life, and hopes were still high for Theo Walcott.

But, in keeping with the theme of that season, Arsenal couldn’t finish the job, the second leg becoming another tale of agonising what ifs.

On the stroke of half-time, an ill-judged Fabregas back-heel was punished by Messi as a dominant Barcelona seized the initiative.

An own-goal from Sergio Busquets early in the second half put Arsenal back in the ascendancy but three minutes later the pendulum swung dramatically in Barcelona’s favour after one of the most contentious refereeing decisions in Champions League history. 

Already on a yellow card, Van Persie was given his marching orders for kicking the ball away after receiving a pass in an offside position. The Dutchman would claim he hadn’t heard the referee’s whistle, an entirely plausible claim given there were 95,000 people at the Camp Nou. Ironically, his protests would fall on deaf ears.

A Xavi strike and a Messi penalty in a devastating three-minute spell gave Barcelona a 3-1 lead on the night but a second Arsenal goal on the night would have sent them through and they should have got it when Wilshere burst forward to put substitute Nicklas Bendtner through for a glorious chance the Dane would butcher.

Neither he, nor Arsenal, would recover. In contrast, Barcelona would make the most of their escape, thrashing Shakhtar Donetsk in the quarter-finals before seeing off bitter rivals Real Madrid in the semi-finals ahead of their final procession against Alex Ferguson’s United.

Could Arsenal have ruled Europe that season had Bendtner kept his nerve at Camp Nou? In view of how their season unravelled, it’s doubtful, but the memory of that magical Emirates night when they went toe to toe with and got the better of one of the greatest club sides in history will remain as one of the glorious highlights of the Wenger era.