Arsenal vs Barcelona: 3 Things To Watch For

Everyone has Arsenal losing against Barcelona, but the question is by how much? Arsenal will not be the first team this season to hold Barca to no goals.

Venue: Emirates Stadium

Date: Feb 23 (EST)

Barca, AC Milan, Bayern, Bayern, Monaco, and now Barca again. Isn’t it interesting and quite amusing that Arsenal seem to be experts at securing a top four place, qualify past the group stage only to play against a potential finalist in the Champions League? When a team draws the two best clubs in world soccer, 4/6 times, chances are that the soccer gods just don’t want you to win.

Ever since Arsenal drew Barca this year I have adamantly stated that Wenger should field all qualified players under the age of 21 in that starting eleven. It’s probably bad sportsmanship or what ever, but I don’t really care and it is because of the three points below!

Prediction: Arsenal 1-3 Barcelona

1) Sanchez will score but no one will care

I truly believe that Sanchez’s recent poor form can be broken by a single moment of pure brilliance. We all know he is more than capable of that. Sanchez will likely see a few chances at a goal this game, with his physicality and speed posing problems for Barcelona’s least strong area, their defense.

However, Sanchez can score 100 goals and it still would be overshadowed by the trio of forwards Barcelona deploys. As a side note, if Sanchez scores 100 goals, Arsenal would probably still lose this tie, because we are capable of losing anything.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

But back to the main point here, and it is the fact that Barcelona have the strongest attacking trio we have seen in our generation. It is headlined by Messi, or Neymar, or Suarez, actually most of the times we don’t even know who the headline act is. All that is known is that they terrorize everyone on their path and no one has been able to stop them when all three are on the pitch at the same time. My bet is that Arsenal will not be the first team to stop them this season.

2) If Per plays, we will complain

After Arsenal won against Leicester City, everyone at Pain in the sArsenal claimed that Per played a solid game. Given the fact that most of us expected Vardy to make Per look more like a slow sloth, Per’s ability to position himself during that game was very impressive. As per Squawka.com, the German giant has won an impressive 71% of his duels, but 75.4% of those defensive actions are from clearances. Against Barcelona’s big three, Per will likely, actually more like definitely, struggle.