PICTURE: Abidal grabs van Persie's neck
Barcelona defender Eric Abidal somehow managed to get away with grabbing Robin van Persie’s neck in a first half scuffle at the Nou Camp.
After the break, Arsenal’s Dutch striker was penalised for kicking the ball away just one second after the referee blew his whistle for offside.
“How can I hear a whistle with 90,000 people jumping up. How to God can I hear that? The referee has been a joke all evening, I don’t know why he is even here. These people are unbelievable,” van Persie told Sky Sports in his post-match interview.
Leave your thoughts on the match and officials decision making in the comments section below.
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Chris Wheatley
Editor and founder of Gooner Talk. Former Arsenal correspondent for Goal.
Thank you van Persie for your. at last someone other than wenger telling the truth. It was a shock sending off and I hope that doesn’t affect him in anyway. How Abidal got away with that i do not know. Hopefully next time.
not an excuse… we were OUTCLASSED
with that ref we had no chance. you need every bit of help playing v the best and we didn,t get it. cesc was not fit and should not have played. well done gunners – you are still the greatest CLUB. Premier league now – please?!!
Unreal the reffing in this game. Still AFC had been booked and warned for time wasting (Sagna) so although I thought the RVP yellow was ridiculous to be fair it wasn’t that out of the blue. I’m not justifying it, I’m just calming down and trying to be rational. The ref’s skewed perception was that AFC were time wasting and trying to slow things up. Not saying he was right but if he gave a yellow for it in the first half… And RVP’s first yellow was unacceptable even though it was a result of the throat grabbing. You have… Read more »
Sorry, but Arsenal were playing overly physical in that first half and this happened after a perfectly well timed (yet very English) tackle was made. Arsenal players are the ones that were the aggressors and were lucky they didn’t get in worse foul trouble. This is a nice little piece of biased journalism. Well done though.
[…] was not sent off for showing studs, neither for abusing the referee, neither for hitting anybody (though some CUNTalunyan did try to kill him), but no, so why was he sent […]
Doesn’t matter Mohamed, we were winning before Van Persie was sent off whether we were outclassed or not. We outclass teams week in week out but don’t always win
It would’ve been hard with 11, but once we went down to 10 forget it. Stupid decision but I think we would’ve lost anyway! 3-2!
cant u take defeat with abit of grace? 2 weeks ago, as a Barca fan, I congratulated you guys for actually playing good football unlike Chelsea and Inter but I’m fed up with the way English media looks at things in only one direction. The red was harsh yes but dont tell me he didnt hear it, he is the most one footed player, he had all the time in the world to put it on to his left but this time he decides to shoot with his right?? Nothing has been mentioned of the 1st leg incidents in England:… Read more »
True we were outclassed but is that any reason for the referee to be diabolical, how many times have we outclassed teams but not won it was barca who dominated true, but our keeper made some great saves but for the referee to continually give our players yellow cards like confetti and xcuse barca is a joke. In all honesty i am getting fed up of the game cause where there is too much money at stake, there is not bound to be corruption, there is corruption. shame it cant be proven. 🙁
deserved to go out. no excuses Should have been 8-1 to Barca
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Try this in your Sunday league……
Yes, the ref was a joke, but we were an even bigger one as well.
ZERO shots on goal?
Come on!
On Saturday we will be out of the FA CUP and since Szczesny is out for a season our season is over as well.
The same crap once again.
TAXI for Wenger.
Mohammed dont be stupid.. we were fantastic from my point of view except for fabregas the sucker and diaby.. honestly Wenger didn’t make anything wrong in this match.. Im not a person to support wenger but truth to be told his tactic today was brilliant.. beautiful play not always needed.. And they didn’t outclass us as u said we held them back but the reasons for our loss is pretty simple: 1. Fabregas << I hope he spends the rest of the season on the bench and Ramsy takes his place for the rest of the season as preparation for… Read more »
OPEN LETTER TO THE REF:
Fuck you, you piece of reffereing shit.
I hope you die a slow and painfull death, you reffereing shit.
May you end up in hell, you piece of reffereing shit.
And FUCK Abidal, Alves & the rest of the fuckers.
Keep it goonerish
The Ref appeared to be looking directly at Valdes shoving Nasri (?) in the face during the same incident. I would have been nice to see them down to 10 for a change. We always get caught out by reacing, as Robin did with his first yellow whilst the perpetrator of the initial incident gets away scot free. We should get in first. As for the game, it’s OK to respect Barca, but they are still only 11 men on a pitch. I’m sure if you stood off any team that is fairly good at passing the ball then you… Read more »
well clearly this ref isnt a fan of arsenal….not even a yellow card?….utter garbage and as an arsenal fan….i’m VERY UPSET *sigh*
Firstly let me say that i am Barca fan, Secondly i do agree with comments that the ref was a joke and ruined what vould have been a great game, the sending RVP off was a disgrace and you wonder why UEFA let people like him ref such an important game. Lastly i also wanna say that despite all the refs mistakes i do feel that tonight Arsenal were just not in the game, for parts of the entire match it seemed ages before Arsenal even got a touch of the ball and when they did the Barca players won… Read more »
They may have won but they have very little credibility left as sportsmen left in my eyes.ref, Pedro Messi, Villa, Daniel, Busquets, so many cheating cunts in one football team.
we shouldnt give a f*ck if arsenal win a cup or whatever unless someone in our family plays for dem anyway we should be focusing on what we can achieve in oour lives
however i wont lie it does feel good to be an arsenal fan :DDDD
Match Stats:
Shots 20:0
Time of Possession 76:24
and after that u guys’re saying that u lost because of referee? get real…
@Pastaface
Exactly… But do YOU not realize… that we would have gone through anyways?
No??
3+1 = 4 , 2+2 = 4
… Does away goals ring a bell?
yea double standards all around.. we keep getting slagged that The Arsenal many times fail to convert dominance into 3 points.. here was a typical case of shoe being on the other foot, we did not deserve to win but at 1-1, we were right in it and all to play for.. the same hypocrites who said we did not deserve to win slag us off when we fail to take all 3 points… bullshit dismissal… killed the game off.. that pass at the end by Wilshere if RVP was there instead of Nik, he would have either smashed it… Read more »
why don u ask the guy from Cophenhavn who stoped at the half line when pedro blew thee whistle???
Wenger,Mr.clueless.
Pasta face, we would go through if we lost 3-2!!!!
@Davey Hepburn: This. We looked like a fooseball table. The balls seemed to bounce off players and when they did actually retain possession they would send an errant pass back to FCB. BUT. None of that means Arsenal couldn’t have still managed to go through in a 11-11 situation. The game at Emirates was similar and we pulled it out. I mean one goal and we would have went through so no one in their right mind can think the sending off didn’t change the game. Still we need to stay out of victim mode and get ready for Man… Read more »
It’s easy to blame the sending off for the defeat but I don’t think it was as simple as that. They dominated the game and we had 0, that’s right 0 shots on target. The goal was an own goal!!! Right at the end we could have snatched it and that’s the difference between us and teams like Liverpool who have beaten Barcelona before at the Nou Camp playing worse than we did tonight. In injury time, most teams would have hit the ball long and had everyone in the box but I don’t think these boys understood that another… Read more »
@ Danish Gooner
maybe if that dudee from your country (bendtner) scoredd that clear chance, wenger wouldve been the opposite of clueless
@yloops:
You should have told that to Arsenal’s players. By the looks of them they didn’t know.
We had been lucky up until that point and could well have gone through but for that decision. Many seem to conveniently forget that we typically become stronger in the last 15 minutes & Barca weaker. As for the fool who suggested Van P did hear the whistle…I suggest you look again – 1 second after the whistle!! Always uses his left??…Try watching some recent games… Nonetheless, as I say we had been lucky until then with a doubtful offside in the first game, a clear penalty in the 2nd and a lot of poor finishing. We needed luck to… Read more »
@Dave (dlbags):
agree i do think the sending off changed things but even with 11 v 11 arsenal never really looked like scoring, the goal you’s got was from a Barca player and looking at the stats published after the game clearly show Barca’s dominance in every factor.
Arsenal have a massive game on saturday and in my opinion are still strong candidates for the Prem League
It’s been mentioned before but the vast majority of Barca’s shots on goal came AFTER RVP had been sent off. Yes they dominated possession but really didn’t threaten much until the Swiss genius stepped in. We always hear from the English pundits/press that possession stats tell you nothing about the game, it’s the final score that counts, yet here we see and hear the complete opposite. The same so-called experts creaming themselves over ‘crab’ football, just hope there’s enough tissues in the studios for them to clean themselves down afterwards.
The fact is we won’t spend the money on referees that Barca do … football is corrupt from top to bottom … it is the elephant in the room of world sport … if Barca are in trouble the refs always come to their aid
@GDK and @loops
Er yeh!!!
That’s what I was hoping, 3-2 in the last minute!! We almost did, but B52….
Didn’t deserve to go through but why can’t we have just one game where we played crap and won!
we int saying we werent out played am sure that was a game plan. the ref messed things up thats what we saying.
In 50 years of watching football I’ve never seen a player carded under those circumstances. Would it have made a difference had it been 11 V 11 for the last 35 minutes? As a gooner I’m bound to think so but the travesty is that we’ll never know. In last years quarter final at the Emirates it was a “game of 2 halves”. We were given a footballing lesson in the first half but scored 2 goals in the second. Likewise in the first leg this season. Every week there are games where one team dominates the first 45 minutes… Read more »
How the hell does that dickhead Abidal stays on the field but yet our highest chance of a goal scorer gets send off over fuckall…. Barca are nothing but fking clowns who’s acting abilities gets them always the referees attention. A disappointment that a world event is decided by a fking bigger clown with a whistle. Anyway our season goes on , let’s smash United at home and win the league & FA Cup. Gooner forever
The one thing that really annoys me is that week in week out I watch teams come to the Emirates and deliberately waste time from the first minute. In fact, I remember thinking after our home game against Leeds that it was the first time in ages I’d seen an away team not obscenely wasting time. On all of these occasions, despite prolonged and repetitive time-wasting, the referee never took any action. In fact, I cannot remember a single yellow card given to an opposition team for time wasting. Then in a big game, we are just ahead. We have… Read more »
I think they must practice this play at Camp Nou……
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/08/article-0-0D87C62C000005DC-341_634x421.jpg
Red card was ridiculous.. as ridiculous as Perie’s head… Good thing that barca bloke did.. was probably explaining persie how messed up he is hehe. It’s a good thing, teams THAT inferior to another one do NTO go through in CL!!!
Refering was poor, But Barcelona was the better team and deserved to win, Arsenal uncharacteristically chose to play defensive, not sure why, ball posession was pathetic, no shots at the goal.
To all those who just don’t get it…Arsenal didn’t go out there to win the game, they went out there to get through to the next round…3-2 and we were through…After Barca scored you could see Arsenal in the second half started to push forward and it was 1-1 shortly thereafter…Oh well…The “Superb” ref just made sure of the result for Barca then didn’t he…All you haters, Man Utd are always looking for more assholes to support them…Please don’t hesitate…
barca deserved to win the first leg ad thefirst leg at the emirates last year but they didnt, deserve to wi and winig are two different things and after 2anda half hours of deserving to win they were losing, until the ref gave them the asist…stats dont lie but neither do facts
We were only outclassed because everytime we got the ball Barcelona were allowed to harrass us in ways that we were not allowed to do to them, Abidal and Alves will get away with murder and Nasri and le Boss will get charges for speaking the truth, with 11 men and a fair ref we would have won the tie, you don’t need more possession to win ties just take your chance x
Could have 15 players on the pitch and it wouldn’t have mattered.
You have to question team selection as well as game plan before the sending off decision. Any fan can tell you that Arshavin is a better player thank Rosicky and did more in the 10-15 minutes than Rosicky did in the 70 mins he was playing. Too narrow and too deep after 10 mins. If I’m a defender and I’m surrounded by a number of opposition players, the first thing that comes to mind is booting it up as far as possible especially against Barcelona, at least it will allow you to push up. Diaby,Fabregas,Rosicky and Nasri also lost out… Read more »
@pastaface: Yes maybe we would have lost 3-2, but than we would have won on aggregate, BIG difference!
@Davey Hepburn: Shut up you deg. loving f…! You are just a dirgrace to the human race. How about Abidal, are you sure barca would have won with 10 men? And Messi, how many times did he kick the ball after an offside decision and also a deliberate hand ball. Remeber arsenal were leading the tie 2-1 we needed no goals, barca did and it took them 48 min to get one. Than arsenal needed a goal it took us 6 min to get ours, then the sending off decided the game. Get of this page.