Barcelona 3 -1 Arsenal (4-3 aggregrate).

Arsenal FC, we're by far the greatest team, the world has ever seen! And it's Arsenal!
The match's just kicked-off- 4 minutes on, now. I think my nerves have gone, now. It was probably the wait that was killing, but now WE'RE ON! So this is actually a love blog. Well kinda. I have no idea how it's going to end!

It's been so easy in the build-up, to forget that we actually have the lead. 2-1 it finished at the Emirates, just in case you forgot. So as it stands, we're going through, woohoo! I'm just rambling now, as I really cannot think straight. What's my name? Not sure I know. Is it Arsenal? Maybe, seeing as that's all that's on my mind now.  Anyway I'm sure I'll remember at 10pm!

Can't believe Robin's actually starting, you know. After all the talk about him being out for 4-6 weeks! I wonder if Arsene knew all along that it would only be a short spell out, after he picked up an injury during that game.

It's been an underwhelming game so far, though, with 12 minutes gone. Whoa, spoke too soon! Messi was kinda clean through, but Koscielny did brilliantly! A wrong move and it would have been a penalty and a Red! Phew! But as I was saying, there haven't been any shots on goal, yet. To be honest, I don't mind it staying that way! Barca have had about what, 90% of the possession so far? Just a guestimate, by the way.

Oops, first yellow of the game. Koscielny. Bang on 15 minutes. Can he hang on for 65 minutes without picking up another booking? Well, he better!

Ooh, from the resulting free-kick, Szczesny seems to have picked up an injury! Dani Alves fired it straight at Szzesny and he gathered it, but he looks like he did something to his fingers. The medical team is at work now. Not sure what he did to it, though. OH NO! Almunia's warming up! And HE'S COMING ON! OH GOD! PLEASE SAVE US! And it seems everyone on my timeline feels the same. But hey, Szczesny can say he kept a clean sheet at the Nou Camp! Just don't ask him how long he played...

Oh no, is Nasri down, now? Not for long, though, thank God! I am actually shaking. I guess the nerves aren't really gone... I've got my laptop on my lap (haha), hope I don't drop it, especially if we score...

Koscielny, be careful! You're on a yellow already! Oh right, that was Robin with the foul. No fluency to this game as of yet. Neither team keeping possession. But Pedro just had a curling effort, but wide of the post! It's building. Sagna with a yellow now. What did he do!? No idea!

Ooooh! Messi just tricked his way past a few players into the box, but the awesome Mr Djourou was there at the vital time to boot it away! Haha, he just fell in the box, but no penalty! You gotta appreciate the small things at this point. Oh wait, it LOOKED a penalty! Oops!

And now Villa just had the chance to score, but his effort was weak and easy for Almnunia. Who still managed to spill it, but only about an inch in front of himself. There was someone covering anyways. Oops, he's just booted the ball against the back of one of us! But Jack was there to mop it up! Phew!

Apologies if anyone is reading this post, as they don't come any more disjointed than this! We keep losing the ball! 10 minutes to go until halftime. It's almost like a game of chess! Ooh, Adriano just hit the bar! Now free-kick to Barca. Wave after wave! But we're doing enough. Just.

Gawd, Almunia scares me. They just showed a close-up of him. Scary!

We need Arshavin.

What, a free-kick?! That so wasn't one! They better not score from here. Defended well.

Finally we attack! But a Barca player is down. Will the match ever get going?

Haha, Robin just got a corner from a ball that came off, umm, him! I told you, the small things. WILSHERE DOWN! Iniesta challenge. Whoa, handbags! Robin getting involved. Not really sure what's going on.
5 minutes of added time. Jack's back in! Yellow for Robin now. It's getting hot now.

Messi with a shot, STRAIGHT at Almunia! Bloody hell, this looks like one of those games where 1-0 will do. Hope WE score that goal!

And Messi scores. Feck. Who on earth was trying the clever back-heel on the edge of the box? Nor so clever. It was Fabregas. Straight to Iniesta, who found Messi, who found the back of the net. Wow, what a reaction from Pep. Could have done his back there! Did the commentator just say "Messy with a y for Arsenal. Messi with an I for Barcelona"? AWFUL!

Half-time. As it stands, Barca are through. Ah, TIMELY stat from Opta! "4- The team that has opened the scoring in the last four encounters between Arsenal & Barcelona have failed to win. Comeback?". I love you OptaJoe. Seriously. Will love you even more if we win!

Just seen a replay of the goal. What a pre goal-attempt flick by Messi! I've just been umm, reliably informed by Twitter that it's called a "Sombrero"!

31% possession in the first half. Umm, BLATANT lie. It was so less then that!

Oh soz, second half's started. More of the same, really. Djourou with an interception! It's all about our defence today, isn't it?

Woohoo, a corner to us! Won by Nasri. AND A GOAL! Hahahaha, Busquets! AS it stands, we're through! Oh hell, and we almost conceded straight away! And Almunia's got a kick in his face for his troubles! Right, our goal. The corner was swung in by Nasri, on to the head of Busquets, and into the net. Simple as! except ofcourse, Busquests plays for Barca!

WHOA! Red for Robin! WHAT THE HELL! He was offside, but carried on, but the ref then sent him off for having a shot! Unjust.

We're in for it now. Wave after wave, again. Almunia's just had to make a save.

Not sure if I can continue this. Dani Alves should just have scored, but he blazed it! Squeaky bum time, and we still have 30 minutes to go. Everything's shaking, now.

Save by Almunia from David Silva!

I think I can only manage to type in short bursts. Gawd, it's 67 minutes on the clock, and I just thought it'll soon be 80 minutes gone. That's how dire it is. Oh, Xavi just scored. But it's not over! Extra time and penalties as it stands. See-sawing, much?

Sigh, penalty. Koscielny on Pedro. Come on, be a hero again, Almunia! Scores. Game, set, match? This could get even messy. But Arshavin's coming on! For Rosicky. But we aren't even attacking. Not getting the chance to, really. There's been an inevitability about the game since the Red. Such an undeserved Red. In the words of Cesc, "how much are they paying you?" I jest, ofcourse. One must learn to find humour even in the deepest of pains. See, football's turned me philosophical. Cesc is off?? Understandably, really. Bentdner on. Almunia's just denied Messi his hattrick. Small mercies.

Almunia again!

5 minutes plus added time remaining. Haha, Pedro should have scored! Empty net, but he rolled it wide! Still some hope left in me. Ohhhh! Bendtner almost won it for us! But poor first touch=Barca recovery=chance gone.

Out of interest, I wonder how many efforts Barca have had. Full-time, by the way.

Not the greatest of spectacles. Felt subdued all game, but especially after the sending off. There really wasn't much more we could have done. Credit to Barca.

19 attempts, 10 on target. No attempts, none on target by us. There it is. Amazing.

Can I just end this post here? Can't really say much else right now. But as I just tweeted, "Credit to Barca. But extra credit to our boys. Played their hearts out. Champions League's only a luxury, anyway. Time to focus on league.".

The joys of being an Arsenal fan... (Part 2)

So. Where was I? Ah, Newcastle. 0-3 and cruising, chow mein being the only difficult part of the day. The room was absolutely buzzing! The 4th goal duly came with 26 minutes on the clock. 26 minutes, 4 goals. Newcastle fans were already fearing the worst, some already leaving the stadium, not able to handle it anymore. That's got to be some record! First half not yet over and the walk-outs have already began! One would have thought we were at the Emirates! (Joke!). But yeah, the first half was brilliant, and it was disappointing that we didn't score anymore in the 19 minutes left in that half. What an absolutely useless team! 4 goals in 26 minutes, 0 in 19 minutes?! There should have been a refund! I jest, ofcourse. There were similar jokes on Twitter, everyone was all jolly.

Second half kicked-off, and we wanted more of the same. But as that football cliche goes, it is a game of two halves! Pretty sure NO ONE would have predicted what happened subsequently at half-time, and it all would not have happened (probably) if not for a moment of madness. Actually, maybe some of the events were predictable. Ofcourse Joey Barton would try his hardest to do something stupid/rile our players. Ofcourse Joey Barton doing something stupid to rile our players would lead to someone getting sent off if they took the bait. Ofcourse one of our players being sent off would increase the pressure on us defensively, us being away. Ofcourse Joey Barton doing something stupid/riling our players, one of them who then takes the bait, them then getting sent off, thus increasing the pressure on us defensively would lead to us conceding goals. Ofcourse Joey Barton being Joey Barton, one of our players taking the bait, then getting sent off, then increasing the pressure on us defensively, then us conceding goals, would lead to us maybe conceding four. Ofcourse... I'll stop there. You get my point.

It wasn't predictable ofcourse, but it wasn't all that surprising in the end. Joey pissed Diaby off. Diaby got sent off. Newcastle pressured us. We cracked. They scored 4. End of. Oh wait! I remember, it was not that simple! First thing to go wrong for us in the second half was Djourou going off injured. Massive blow, he being our best defender since our other best defender Vermaelen got injured all those years ago. Not cool. Then shortly after was the Joey Barton/Diaby incident. I was pretty mad that day. But who was I mad at? I wasn't, and I am still not, too sure. Maybe Diaby for taking the bait? He could have retaliated in a more sensible manner- tackled him equally as badly, but when the referee was not watching. He could have punched him when the whistle went off. So many things he could have done, but in the heat of the moment, do you actually think that deeply? Or maybe I was furious with Joey Barton. He is a hideous creature and him simply being on the pitch is enough to make you angry. How DARE he tackle one of our players so recklessly, especially Diaby with his history of ankle injury caused by a similar tackle? How DARE he be Joey Barton! But well, he is, and he did do what he did. And it did lead to Diaby being sent off. And it did... and so on.

So that was the red card. Then came the goals. A penalty (scored by Joey Barton ofcourse). Then a goal. Then another penalty scored by. Then a screamer of a winner, sorry equaliser, 3 minutes from time. The first penalty. Was that the dodgy one? Well, in my mind right now, BOTH were dodgy! Oh, and after the penalty, Nolan should have been sent off for arm-wrestling Szczesny to the ground, which was in effect the same thing Diaby did! But the end result? A yellow to Szczesny for keeping hold of the ball after the penalty. In all honesty it was all Newcastle at this point, but it could all have ended differently if Nolan had been sent off. Their first goal came after 68 minutes (Diaby's red was after 50 minutes), and less than 10 minutes later, the second one came. Leon Best. I can't remember what the goal was like (and you can't blame me for not wanting to relive it!), but it was a deserved goal. Deserved in the sense that just a minute or so before, they had put the ball in the net , but the linesman flagged someone offside. But they weren't, as Rosicky was playing them on!

It was crazy at that point! Newcastle had the wind in their sails, and we were rocking! It was almost like we were a ship that's been sailing smoothly, and all of a sudden, one wrong steer and we were in the worst weather ever! Were we going to sink? Or were we going to survive, but with our ship severely hit by the storm? 15 minutes more and we'd be at shore! Could we hold on? We weren't helped by the most ridiculous refereeing decision ever! Since when was that a penalty??? There'd be millions of penalties every game if that was a genuine penalty. It wasn't! But not according to the referee. Unbelievable. And who was there to tuck it in, if not the probably-grinning-from-ear-to-ear-on-the-inside Joey Barton. At this point I wouldn't have minded if one of our players had seriously decked him! Well, obviously that would have been highly stupid, but it would have been perfect in that moment! But anyway, he tucked it in, and the pressure on our increasingly fragile "boat" was immense! 8 minutes plus injury-time to score a goal and complete- cliche time- the comeback of all comebacks!

Wish I had a picture of how Club level looked at that point in time! Everyone was probably like me- on the edge of their seats praying like MAD that we'd hold on! But their 4th duly came, Tiote blasting in from long range! The only positive from that game was that the Newcastle fans who had left before half time had missed an UNBELIEVABLE match! all that's left now is for the same to happen to their Emirates counterparts... Not  that I want us to concede 4 goals in a miserable first half display, but you know what I mean. But anyways, I digress!

4-4, and with 4 minutes to go, and 5 minutes of time added on, either team could have gotten the winner! Although it would have been cruel on the other side, but we both came close! I think the Newcastle effort was dragged only just past the post, whereas van Persie's brilliant effort was offside. Not that we knew immediately, as we all thought we'd nicked it! But full time eventually came. Who'd have thunk it? Breathless stuff! In all that drama, it totally skipped my mind that Sol was on the bench! He didn't get on in the end, though.

I think it was one of those incredible football games- like the 4-4 at Anfield- where it'd be a pointless exercise faulting one person or the other. It was simply a brilliant game of football, and one that demonstrated exactly why we all love the game. It's unpredictable, and is at its best when there is a complete disregard for the script. It almost felt as if there was nothing we could have done about the game- it was meant to happen. Match of the Day didn't even have it in them to criticise us! It was just one of those extraordinary games that come about every once in a while. And luckily for us, it turned out to be a decent weekend for us, what with Manchester United losing their (fortunate) unbeaten run to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Wait, what? Oh sorry, Wolves at Molineux! See? That was an even worse result than ours! And I think Chelsea lost as well that weekend. It was a generally bizarre weekend, football-wise, and we ended up closing the gap to Man. Uinted by a point! I know, I know, we could and should have closed it by 3, but at the same time, we could well have lost!

Memorable game, though, and I guess that's the whole point of sports. Lasting memories. This blog is pretty long already, so umm, it's high time I called it a day! And oh, I missed hip-hop classes! Well, intentionally, but I was looking forward to it yesterday. Maybe I'll go next week...

I'm going to head home soonish- Chelsea v Manchester United in on in an hour and 15 minutes! Awesome! *Squeaky voice* Come on Chelsea! Bleurgh!

Oh, if I ever say I'm going to an away screening, punch me so hard, that I'll be knocked out until the game is over! ;)