Just spent an immensely satisfying 90 minutes watching Barcelona toil against Valencia at the Nou Camp. The home team were defeated 2-1 and the nine point lead over Real Madrid and Athletico Madrid has vanished. There can’t be a more arrogant club in the world than Barcelona (and I include Bayern Munich when making that claim).
There have been many low points in Arsenal’s season (and I’m not going to go anywhere near discussing our draw with Palace earlier today) but for me a moment in our home defeat against Barcelona in the Champions League was the lowest moment. Upon building a 2 goal lead, Gerard Pique and the Barca management immediately connived for Pique to get booked on purpose. It would lead to a suspension for the second leg for the central defender but it was deemed the outcome of the tie was now a forgone conclusion and it would free up Pique from the danger of a suspension later in the tournament when bigger fish were to be faced. The panel on BT Sports discussed the incident in the video below:
In the event, Barca were joyfully knocked out by Athletico at the quarter final stage and now their League campaign is faltering. Messi has not scored for ages, Suarez is increasingly moaning at his colleagues and the team looks utterly exhausted. It made for great viewing. Momentum is so important at this time of year and it gets ever more difficult to turn things around when the players are so fatigued. Physically and mentally, the Barca players look shot. There’s a round of midweek League games in Spain and it’s going to be fascinating to see if Louise Enrique can manage a turnaround in the teams fortunes. It just goes to show the biggest teams, who play so much football, cannot just rely on a small squad of players. No longer can you just pick from a squad of 16/17 players. The attacking trio of Neymar, Messi and Suarez are running on empty.
Maybe they too should have got suspended on purpose earlier in the season, handing them an enforced rest……