A Bad Weekend For Arsenal But Bring On Barcelona.

The weekend is over and Arsenal are four points behind "Manure" and three points behind Chelsea in the race for the Premier league title with six games left to go.

As was pointed out by LadyArse yesterday it's probably a position we would have gladly taken after we had lost to both "Manure" and Chelsea less than two months ago. However, it's not a position we would have taken at 10 to five last Saturday as our game at Birmingham entered injury time.

We now find ourselves playing a game of catch up with time against us and some tough fixtures still to come.

I went to a pub to watch the game on Saturday as it wasn't live on any of the various TV channels that can be accessed normally. A group of about 20 Arsenal fans showed up to watch the game and we were all squeezed into a corner watching the game on a couple of TVs while one man and his dog watched the Chelsea game on the big screen.

I think the broadcast we were watching was meant for Greek TV, but the commentary was in English. The beer flowed and as I stood and watched the game (all the free seats were by the large screen) I chatted to an old friend I hadn't seen in a few years who is a fellow Gooner.

As the second half progressed we could see how the Chelsea game was going and we knew we needed to get a win from somewhere. We discussed how Arsenal never seem to make life easy for their fans, but when Arshavin and Nasri in particular were introduced it looked like we would get the win.

When the goal came we celebrated as if the league title was on the way to the Emirates, but when Birmingham equalised I hit the wall in frustration.

Nobody could believe that Almunia had got so much behind the ball but had failed to keep it out. He was "persona non grata" among all of us.

With Chelsea thumping Aston Villa 7-1 I held out some hope that Bolton could do us a favour at home to "Manure." But with another own goal going their way to open the scoring, they ran out easy as 4-0 winners and things looked very bad for Arsenal.

There is no doubt that it will be a huge uphill struggle to come back yet again, but because of the way we have done it already I won't be writing Arsenal off completely just yet.

The two teams ahead of us play each other in the early kickoff next Saturday before we play at the traditional time of 3pm on a Saturday for the second week in a row.

A few weeks ago a home game against Wolves would have looked like a good opportunity to get an easy win and increase our goal difference, but they have been on a fine run of form and with our games against Barcelona either side of Saturday it will be far from an easy game. 

The focus for the next few days will obviously be on our Champions league quarterfinal at home against Barcelona this Wednesday night and the return of Thierry Henry to the club he loves.

Added to that we have Cesc playing against his boyhood club and the team that he has always supported, making for a fascinating game.

Then we have to consider the fact that both of these teams are the main exponents of the "beautiful game" and it's easy to see why the neutrals are looking forward to the game as much as the fans or possibly even more.

Ahead of the game it would seem that there are injury doubts over both Cesc and Song for Arsenal and Barcelona will definitely be missing Iniesta. Hopefully Cesc can play for us and show Barcelona exactly what they missed out on and will continue to miss out on for the next few years.

With our chances in the league decreasing after Saturday's result we now have to focus on this game as possibly our best route to silverware this season, but it doesn't get any harder than playing the current champions next.

That's it for today, but I'll preview the game over the next couple of days as the excitement builds and hopefully our players use that excitement to get over Saturday's last minute heartbreak. 

Here's  another look at the Nasri goal at home to Porto in our last Champions league game at home.

See you tomorrow.