Inside Info on Arsenal's Preparation for Barcelona: Line-Ups Revealed

No blogs since last Thursday, and I'm doing my best to get a quick one in this Easter Monday in the good name of Jesus our Lord and Saviour almighty.

OK it's actually in the good name of Bendtner, but he's like my own personal Jesus, so there.

Anyway, it was my plan to get over to London this weekend and watch Arsenal thrash Wolves, but I had to cancel my plans after my lovely boss gave me some lovely last minute work, which I'm trying to finish by mañana. Which is just...well lovely really.

So I was Londonless, Blogless, not legless, and Wolves remained thrashless this weekend, which all in all is very sad.

Sympathy session over. It's time to start talking about what happened to Arsenal in these last four days.

Since our miraculous comeback to give us a sliver of hope against the Barce tomorrow, we've played one game against a team in good form, the Wolverhampton Wanderers.

It was a tough old contest and despite all our possession and plethora of chance creation, it took us until the 94th minute of time to score against Mickalous MickCarthy's menjamin. Bendtner popped up with the winner and further cemented his Jesus-personified status with one Arsenal Adam.

Player of the season anyone?

Wolves were reduced to 10 men after their captain Duke Henry (not actually named Duke) slid through the back of Tomas Rosicky who cleverly shielded the ball from the reckless oncomer. No Arsenal bias here at all. NONE WHATSOEVER.

This tackle has been talked about a lot, and apparently we only got the red because of our complaining and our three horrific injuries that we've suffered in the last four seasons. I have two things to say in response to this.

1. So what?

2. Damn right.

I don't like the complaining that goes on in football, but in the past when we have left the referee to his own devices we have suffered as a result, clearly this type of pressure is necessary to get the correct call nowadays and unfortunately if you don't protest, the ref doesn't do his job.

This may not have been a red card 15 years ago, but the fact of the matter is players earn so much money these days, and the pace of the game is so much more than it was in previous times, it is important to protect these professional athletes from reckless play.

Henry, like Shawcross, went into that tackle with excessive force. That is to say, it was an unnecessary amount of speed and risk, and dangerous play, which can merit a red card.

Perhaps the only positive of the three horrific injuries we have suffered in four seasons is that referees will be more willing to take a hard-line stance when it comes to "reckless challenges." We all like good hard football, but I think we prefer that all 22 players leave the pitch with their limbs intact.

Seriously, Henry's tackle wasn't the worst I've seen all year, but he was second favourite to win the ball, and although he got a pitch of it, he's sliding through the back part of Rosicky's ankle and if his studs he planted we could be looking at another YouTube reel of Rosicky's horrified compound fracture.

I'm not condoning Arsenal's players screaming at the referee, but until we get technology in football, and better quality refs, it seems that this scenario is a necessary evil we must bare.

So I've just returned from Estacion Norte in Valencia after my morning coffee and I've bought my ticket to Barcelona.

I'm like a kid in the candy store, and perhaps I should have waited to finish my 30-page article on Eligibility, Nationality, and Selection Criteria in a European context before I bought these tickets cause now I'm just staring at them thinking of all the wonderful ways Arsenal could score classic European goals.

I will be gone tomorrow so I suppose I better do a quick preview now.

BARCE V. ARSE

Unfortunately we are entering this game tonight without our three best attacking players, and arguably our best defender. Never mind a google of other injured players.

Most notably Cesc, Arshavin, and Gallas injured themselves against Barcelona after having been included by Arsene Wenger as "risky selections."

All three were carrying knocks going into the Barce game and unfortunately all three gambles did not pay off.

To be honest, I couldn't care less that Arshavin is out. I think his inability to or blatant disregard for defending is something extremely dangerous against Barcelona, and while he's popped up with big goals for us during his 14 months at the Club, he's in very poor form in 2010, and his overall play has just not been up to scratch.

Cesc is a huge loss. He is our best player. He makes us tick. However, I think Nasri is more than capable of turning a game, and we're all hoping he can perform as well as he did against Porto in March.

Gallas has probably played his last game in an Arsenal shirt. I'm sure he is off to Italy for one last paycheck. He's been good this season, funny how players do that in contract years, but he's never been a favourite of mine. I'm looking forward to seeing who our CB pairing will be next year. The Thommy Gunner and the Swiss cheese Djourou perhaps?

More urgently, who will be our CB pairing against Barcelona?

I reckon Song will drop back and Denilson and Diaby will be given the charge of protecting our back four on Tuesday.

However, Sol might be declared fit. I'd probably prefer to have the 35-year-old and his experience. While Song has played well as a CB, he's definitely our most important midfielder with Cesc out and I feel like Iniesta v. Denilson is more dangerous than Ibra or even Messi v. Campbell.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this on my twitter page. Follow me at www.twitter.com/upthearseblog .

I would like to see Nasri in Cesc's role, Rosicky on the left to track back on Messi, and Theo on the right to pin back Maxwell and Pedro.

However, Wenger might think that he'd rather take a defensive approach to this game and play Eboue to track back against Maxwell and Pedro. I would be hesitant of this, I don't want to start the game on the back foot and if we can score early against Barcelona and then counter attack using Walcott's pace and Bendtner's aerial ability, I'd be more much happy than having to introduce Walcott as a substitute to try and get us back into the tie after we are a couple of goals down.

I think we need to try and play our game, maintain possession and use our superior pace to get at Barcelona. They are missing their starting centre backs. We need to test their backups (who are also excellent players).

If we just go to defend, the explosion and suspension of Puyol and Pique respectively will matter little because they won't be tested by our players at all. Barcelona will AGAIN keep 70 percent possession and we'll AGAIN be chasing the game.

Clichy and Sagna should start, and I think they both played well against Barcelona, Leo Messi and Pedro did suck all of diddly squat so I was pleased with our containment of their widemen, however they need to learn to close down a LITTLE quicker. If we stand off again, its only a matter of time before one of Alves' or Maxwell's balls finds Ibra in the middle.

Almunia will continue in goals. He'll probably be captain. Sigh...Hopefully he'll play 90 minutes like the first 30 he had in London.

Anyway, all of this is information, while interesting, is irrelevant when compared to the importance of who we have leading the line. The B52 bomber.

Bendtner is certainly our most important player against Barcelona, he needs to give those two new centre backs hell, he needs to win all the aerial balls he can from crazy Almunia kick-outs, or from our poor set pieces.

When you look at where goals are going to come from against Barcelona, its hard to find many players who inspire you. Sure, Verm could score, Theo could score, Nasri could score, Diaby could score, Rosicky could score, even Denilson could score. However, the one player who NEEDS to score, who needs to INSPIRE, is our Great Dane, Super Nick.

He's talked a lot this season. So has Wenger, now it's time to show Barcelona that all of our talk doesn´t sum up to a bunch of "Blau, Blau, Blau...grana."

UptheArse