Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadow Demon UK
You scored an flukey own goal and had a shot off target, yeah you were all over them alright. It was only a matter of time before you were once again camped in your own half after you scored whether you had 10 or 11 men on the pitch.
Yes, and if Messi had scored the four or five chances he had, if Adriano and Afellay scored the chances they had and so on, then Wenger would have been shown up and Barcelona would have walked into the next round by a huge margin.
I think Wenger got the tactics at the begining right by the way, Barcelona were just too good though.
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Who said anything about being all over them? Yeah, we certainly would have been camped in our own half again which is exactly why losing a man had an effect. Defending and holding up play with 11 is better than defending and holding up play with 10, that's not debatable.
Yes, and so by the same logic, Barca's first goal could be considered pretty "fluky" too.
Obviously Barcelona thoroughly deserved to win - they scored more and also had poor refereeing decisions against them. I have no qualms with the overall result. My point is that it doesn't mean playing with 11 couldn't have made any difference and the domination of play by a team doesn't mean they should or will get a result. Which is exactly as i said a year ago with Inter when the stats and dominance by Barca was almost identical to last night. The idea of "They dominated play, thus
definitely were going to win whatever happened" is fallacy. With that attitude, we might as well have just forfeited (cue inevitable jokes).