Arsenal’s season seems to be falling apart in front of Arsene Wenger’s eyes. With Danny Welbeck’s last-gasp winner against Leicester a few weeks ago, the Gunners had clawed their way back into the title race and were still in with a fighting chance for the FA Cup and the Champions League.
But after a month of ham-handed performances and humbling defeats, they now stand eleven points behind Ranieri’s league leaders, ousted from the FA Cup, and head into the Nou Camp with a 2-0 deficit against a team unbeaten in 37 matches. The situation is far from ideal.
While Wenger and the players are bullish heading into the game, refusing to give up hope and maintaining that Arsenal have a chance to progress, it is going to take an upset of gargantuan proportions for Barcelona to concede the tie; the kind of upsets that Arsenal often find themselves on the wrong side of.
The entire footballing world has tonight’s tie as a write-off for the home team, their eyes already flitting towards the quarter-finals.
Where Wenger is correct is in his assessment of how Barcelona can be beaten: good defense, clinical offense, and loads of luck.
Good defense
On the face of it, this is a laughable objective to aim towards. Planning to keep a clean sheet against the explosive trio of Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Luis Suarez as they spit fire and hail towards goal is almost an exercise in futility. Almost.
There are dregs of positivity that Arsenal can draw upon. While their defense has been leaky in recent times, the first choice backline of Monreal, Bellerin, Koscielny, and Mertesacker have rarely played together in the last month. This backline will play today, and although the cool helmeted head of Petr Cech will be dearly missed, David Ospina has proved an able replacement in recent times.
The return of Koscielny will particularly be a boost for Wenger, who has seen Gabriel make multiple mistakes against Watford and Swansea.
The midfield pairing of Coquelin and Elneny, while clearly having its limitations, was solid and structured in a tough game at White Hart Lane a fortnight ago. Until Coquelin got sent off, the Tottenham midfield had difficulty in dictating play and Arsenal soaked up pressure with relative ease.
In another away game where the opposition is expected to have most of the ball, Wenger is likely to choose this midfield in response. Both Coquelin and Elneny will need to be at the top of their game, as they can be sure any laxity in position or possession will be punished severely.
All these caveats aside, a cricket score seems more likely than a clean sheet if Barcelona get an early goal and keep going.
Clinical offense
As if a strong defensive performance against Barcelona wasn’t difficult enough, Arsenal also have a 2-0 deficit to overcome at Camp Nou. With the Coquelin-Elneny axis light on creativity, Arsenal’s attackers must make sure they battle for every chance and not continue the profligacy exhibited in 2016 so far.
Mesut Ozil is sure to be in the No. 10 role, finding space between the channels and looking to feed in Giroud/Welbeck with balls behind the defense. The longer the game goes scoreless, the greater chance Ozil has of getting the ball in space with Arsenal players in front of him to pick out.
Alexis Sanchez is a sure-fire pick despite his desperately poor form ever since returning from a hamstring injury in January. Today would be the perfect time for the Chilean to find his mojo and provide one of those game-changing moments that were so commonplace last season.
The other wing is a toss-up between Joel Campbell and Theo Walcott, the former providing prodigious work rate and better ability on the ball, and the latter providing searing pace and better off-the-ball runs. Walcott, who has scared and scored against Barcelona in the past, may get the nod but will need to make sure he is not careless in possession and tracks back diligently.
Olivier Giroud got back to scoring ways against Hull but huffed and puffed against Watford again. In stark contrast, Welbeck was bright and springy when brought on against the Hornets, scoring one and almost pulling things level in the final minute.
The Englishman merits a start here, with his quick darts past the shoulder of the centre-backs a perfect foil for Ozil’s lobs and through balls. Giroud can prove to be an effective substitute, as against Bayern Munich in the group stages, by coming on and presenting an aerial outlet during counters and set pieces.
Loads of luck
Above everything, Wenger and co. need to clutch at any lucky rabbit toes and form endless prayer circles to have any chance of progressing today. Even if Arsenal play their best game of the season and Barcelona have a poor outing, the home side still has enough in their armoury of riches to put oppositions to the sword.
The small margins that tend to cumulatively decide games have to all go in Arsenal’s favour, kind of like they went in Chelsea’s favour in their famous Camp Nou triumph.
Defensive blocks have to ricochet to the right person, Barcelona shots have to fly off target, penalties conceded have to be missed, the referee has to have a neutral game (unlike the game a few years ago with van Persie’s farcical red card), and the effort put in by Arsenal has to be supplemented with gifts from Fate.
There are almost too many ifs for realization to be statistically possible, but as Koscielny said pre-game, Arsenal have a five percent chance.
All said and done, the odds are very long on Arsenal to get a result from this game and rightly so. At the very least, Wenger will hope for a good performance and some confidence to take back to the Premier League, with Everton waiting over the weekend to potentially heap more misery on a campaign that once looked so promising.
