Arsenal relied oncounter-attacks and had chances, most notably from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Olivier Giroud, but now have a daunting task to turn the tie around in theNou Camp. The only issue with reigning champions’ display was the sloppy passing from several players, most specifically, Suarez upfront.
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“We were impatient in the build-up, we lost balls that we usually don’t and that’s not because Barcelona forced us to do it, but just because we were not precise enough in our passing”.
He said: “It will be very difficuly but we have to try and do our best”.
But asked if he would be tempted to play a weakened team in their second league with Barca, the manager responded: “Barcelona are certainly through, 95 per cent, but we want to go there and play”.
“Having this front three fills me with pride”, Rakitic added.
Messi claimed that his team had always meant to make a cautious start to the game, preserving their energy for the second period when they anticipated that Arsenal would start to tire. Despite a poor run of form and injury issues, we know that a fully fit and focused Alexis Sanchez has the ability to fire Arsenal to the title.
Messi’s two goals also broke an eight-game drought against Cech, a fact which pleased the Argentina captain.
“In the first goal I knew Messi could score at the first touch and that is why I went to the floor”.
He said: “We could not have bought Neymar”.
“We managed to deal with Arsenal’s pressure really well”.
“They wanted to take risks, but we did too and that’s how we opened the scoring”.
The north London outfit have been at times thrifty in the transfer market since they moved to the Emirates in 2006.
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Luis Enrique backed up Messi and Busquets’ view by dismissing the suggestion that his team initially struggled to establish a foothold in the game. Barca’s best chance of the half resulted in the Spaniard’s diagonal to the byline for Alves, who nodded it back to Suarez, but the Uruguayan’s effort flew inches wide of the post.
