One proud night in N5

Shortly after Bernie Ecclestone split from his wife some years ago, a friend called up to ask how he was doing.

“Things are better,” he said from his new multi-million pound bachelor pad. “Now, when I wake in the morning and it’s raining, I no longer get the blame.”

There are times when Wenger must have felt like he’s solely responsible for the world’s faults. The press have hardly been kind to him, pointing the finger his way for the shortcomings of the English national team, while his fellow managers have accused him of everything from cheating and lying to conning referees this season.

However, last night’s game went a long way to earning us some love.

The whole event oozed class. Before kick off we learned the club finally knows how to put on a show. The flags on the seats, the giant banners paraded around the stadium at kick off (and again when we scored), along with the spotlights and the dramatic music created a scene to rival European nights at Anfield, the San Siro and Barcelona. Now all we need is a proper club song. Elvis to leave the building, as it were.

Yet it was on the pitch that the club set about silencing even its sternest of critics. Wenger refused to betray his philosophy in favour of kicking Barca off the park. The players refused to drop their heads in the face of endless ball chasing and disheartening spells of no possession. They should be proud of the spirit they showed in pulling a victory out of what could have been a mauling. And the club as a whole should be heralded for beating what is, now by general consensus, the best team in the world – and in style.

It was, of course, a game of two teams. Barcelona were just as big a part of the spectacle. The stat being bandied around that Barcelona passed the ball 800 times – when the average in a Premier League game is about 250 for both teams combined – is alone a symbol of the quality of this match. This is how football should be played, and I hope that sticks firmly in the mind next time some lazy commentator praises Stoke or Bolton for launching a throw-in into the six-yard box so some six-foot meat-head can bundle it over the line. This was total football.

It’s true the game isn’t over. For all the positives – that Pique will miss the next leg, that Nasri will be fit enough to defend as well as attack, that we can fail to score and still go through, that Messi has three weeks to get injured – there remain a few concerns: namely, that if we let Barca have the level of control in the second leg that they enjoyed in the first, we will be crucified.

But whatever happens in the Camp Nou, Arsenal have already proved a lot of people wrong. Those that said we couldn’t hope to beat Barca at their own game were wrong. While those who have berated Wenger’s approach, philosophy and stubbornness, can now see why he refuses to change - because he has built a team that can compete with the best, while playing the best kind of football, in a stadium that could, one day, also be the best – and with a 19-year-old Englishmen at its heart.

Makes you proud to support the Arsenal.