Arsenal 2-1 Barcelona

Arsenal defeated the best team in the world last night at the Emirates Stadium in a truly great game of football. Barcelona lived up to their status with a brilliant performance in the first half where to be honest Arsenal were a class apart and hardly got a touch of the ball. However the game changed completely in the second half, Arsenal looked far better than in the second half and started to dominate the midfield. Van Persie and Andrey Arshavin scored two of the biggest goals of their careers to give Arsenal a great chance of completing the victory at the Nou Camp.

 The match started with Barcelona on the front foot clearly dominating the game. Arsenal were struggling to close the Barcelona players down especially in the middle of the park where Xavi and Iniesta were in complete control. At the beginning the decision to start Samir Nasri appeared to affect the team as he didn't look full of energy and Barcelona had a lot of joy down the right hand side of the pitch. They continued to pile on the pressure and Messi broke through the defence only to miss what seemed a certain goal for the Argentine. Everyone expected Messi to score but he didn't much to the relief of the Arsenal faithful. Arsenal also missed some easy chances with Van Persie being the main culprit, we were made to pay however when David Villa scored a brilliant goal after cutting apart the Arsenal backline. It was a very good goal and one which Szczesny could do nothing about. Villa's goal came in the 26th minute and Barcelona really should have gone in at half time 3 or 4 goals up. Luckily this didn't happen, and despite being outplayed Arsenal were still in with a shout at half time.

 At half time Arsenal looked to be out of the game and even the majority of Arsenal fans believed we were going to finish the game 2 or 3 goals behind. However at the start of the second half Arsenal were already playing a lot better than in the first half. We were keeping possession and closing down Barcelona well when they had the ball. We were creating more chances but not taking them and this was the worry for the Arsenal fans. Wenger acted to change this boldly taking off the defensive minded Alex Song for the very attack minded Andrey Arshavin. This paid off in the end as Arsenal were now well and truly on the front foot and Van Persie scored a very clever goal in the 78th minute much to the surprise of the Barcelona keeper Valdes. It was one of the Dutchman's most important goals and at this point I believed Arsenal could and should go on to win the match. Then we scored a truly magnificent goal, one even Barcelona would struggle to score. There was some brilliant build up play from Cesc and Wilshere before Samir crossed brilliantly for the little Russian Arshavin to score beautifully. It was one of our best goals in recent years and also one of the most important.

Well and truly back on form.

All in all I believe we deserved the win due to the immense team spirit we showed to come back from a goal down against the best team of the generation. We could of easily crumbled and lost the game heavily but we continued to attack and eventually it paid off. Jack Wilshere and Laurent Koscielny were outstanding, with Jack showing Xavi and Iniesta how it's done in the second half. We now take a 2-1 lead to the Nou Camp, this will be a bigger test but one we should be able to overcome.