Cometh the hour…

Barcelona. Despite what Freddie Mercury said, it’s not the first time that we’ve met. And today wasn’t the first time I’ve picked up a paper to read one of the 22 players who will take to the field tomorrow night mouthing off about how their team can win, how Barcelona aren’t invincible, how Messi can be stopped or how Arsenal are stronger than the last time the sides met.

It’s not entirely the fault of the players. They’re forced to sit through endless press conferences in the lead up to the game and, when asked “Can you win the game?”, their answer of “it’ll be hard but of course we can win it” becomes a double-page ‘exclusive’ entitled “Fabregas: We can thrash Barca” or something equally as provocative.

All the papers have pinpointed their potential match-winner. The general consensus, of course, is that Messi and Iniesta will run the show but that any of Walcott, Nasri, Fabregas and Wilshere has the potential to turn it in Arsenal’s favour. Loosely translated: a flair player might do something attacking. Not exactly rocket science is it.

However, in order for our attacking play to be as it usually is – as electric as a racehorse at Newbury – we may depend on another player altogether. You see, having the ball and spreading it around means having the ball in the first place. For the first 20 minutes of last year’s home game we couldn’t get it. And while I thought I might never say this about a player who was once not good enough to keep Charlton in the Premier League, our key man tomorrow night could well be Alexander Song.

Although Song is still about as consistent as a London tube line, he is of growing importance to the Arsenal team. As well as having the ability to win the ball, his partnership with Jack Wilshere – who can also tackle - means Fabregas can get further forward without worrying about the kind of counter attack Man U and Chelsea killed us off with in the past.

We’ve lost two Champions League games this season: away at Shaktar Donetsk and away at Braga. Song missed both games. If he doesn’t ‘go missing’ tomorrow, the trend of Arsenal winning when Song plays in Europe may well continue.

Cometh the man.