Round 2 of 12

Results

Date	Time	C	Opponent	F	A	R	S
31 Mar	7:45 PM	CL	Barcelona (H)	2	2	Draw

I'd like to start today's blog by apologising. For those of you who cannot remember back to a previous blog, I informed the world that my 9 month old daughter had turned out to be a lucky charm and our recent run of victories was in fact nothing to do with Wenger, Fabregas et. al but actually because of a god given talent possessed by my girl. All simple enough really.

Last Saturday as you will all know things didn't go right for Arsenal in general and it definitely was not what Fabregas, Almunia and Eduardo would have wanted personally. I know the gift that my daughter has and how it is quiet obviously linked directly to a game taking place in a different country. I neglected to bring her with me when I headed away from home for a weekend with my wife. We lost. As they say in America, you do the math.

Now that my tongue is displaced from my cheek, I would like to address tonight's game. All the old cliché's will probably hold true. Its a game of two halves, its not over until the final whistle etc. I believe that the longer this tie goes scoreless it would be advantage Arsenal. Who remembers Muhammad Ali's famous rope a dope bout with George Foreman..

Having watched Barcelona and more importantly Messi at his mesmerising best over the last few weeks it would be too easy to assume that he will get one on one with Sol Campbell and definitely score another hat full of brilliant goals. Wenger is no fool, he will have a plan in place that CAN work. It is up to the 11 players on the pitch to pull it off. Its a tall order but look at the prize on offer.

Finally I believe luck will, as always, play a part in who progresses to the next round. Last night we saw Manchester United take on opposition inferior to Barcelona and also have that opposition lose their best player. By nights end it was Bayern who steadfastly refused to look at their more illustrious opponents in awe and they got their reward with two late and somewhat unfortunate goals. As if that wasn't enough, the boy wonder himself fell awkwardly and injured his ankle.

In the space of a few moments the entire tie was turned on its head. The ramifications of those few moments may well be felt in the long-term by Manchester United which will then have a direct affect on the remainder of our campaign both at home and abroad.

You getting nothing for nothing in football, well actually if you are good enough you can get Cesc Fabregas for nothing. But in broader terms it holds true. If you want to be a champion you need to beat the champion and every winning team has to come of age at some point. Why not start tonight.

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