Will Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas Be Ready To Face Barcelona?

The severe pain inflicted by Birmingham's injury time equaliser on Saturday is just starting to fade at last and only now am I starting to look forward to tomorrow night's Champions league quarter final against Barcelona. I have heaped a lot of the blame for that goal on Almunia and I suppose there were other factors at work as well.

We could easily have had a free for offside as Benitez was clearly the intended target of the original ball into the box and he was offside and then  Sagna's clearance was deflected off Phillips before Almunia made a mess of it. On another day things might have gone our way but they didn't and on such things a team's hopes can live or die. 

I'm sure if you read a few of the anti-Wenger blogs will get plenty of calls for his head as they will blame him for not buying the right players at the right time or getting our tactics wrong. The boss himself was far from happy with the state of the pitch at Birmingham and there is a case for the Premier league insisting that the pitches meet a certain standard to ensure that football can actually be played on them.

Our pitch is like a bowling green and if we can do it surely the rest of the teams in the league can as well. I suppose it suits certain teams to have their pitch in a state like that as it stops good football being played and they can prosper with their long ball game.

I read a piece yesterday that described Birmingham's Fergusson and Bowyer as decent, honest British pros and it just shows the ignorance of some people. To describe Lee Bowyer as either decent or honest is an affront to all the decent and honest people in the world. He is a thug and a racist and as far as I can see he has no redeeming features. 

Our most important player in that game against Barcelona will be our captain and play maker Cesc and it would appear that he has not been ruled out quite yet. He is undergoing treatment for the severe bruising to his knee he received in a tackle against Birmingham when the ball was on the ground.

I use the term tackle in it's broadest sense as it was more of an attempt to make sure he played no further part in the game. It did look like Cesc would come off at the time but he soldiered on and despite not being at his best he still managed the best pass of the game when he put Nasri through for a one on one with the Birmingham keeper just before the end. Unfortunately Nasri tried to square the ball for Arshavin who had given up and dropped off the play as would seem to be his habit of late.

Arshavin is a very talented player who can do wonderful things on the ball but his work rate off the ball and in retrieving it when he has lost it are pitiful at times and a lot of fans are beginning to question his attitude and desire.

Tomorrow night's game is a great stage for a player of his ability to show the world what he can do and I sincerely hope we see the Arshavin who scored four terrific goals at Anfield last season as opposed to the one who has fluffed so many gilt edged chances in recent games. He can't complain of being tired as he only played the last 20 minutes on Saturday and it would make a pleasant change to see him play as if his life depended on it.

There are differing reports around the media today regarding the fitness and availability to start against Barcelona of Arshavin, Nasri, and Diaby. The boss kept Nasri and Arshavin out of the starting team on Saturday as they were both carrying knocks but hopefully their 20 minute sojourns did't make matters any worse and they will be fit to play. Diaby has had continual injury problems since suffering a similar injury to the one Ramsey did four years ago at Sunderland.

He seems to come back and play a maximum of three or four matches before some niggling injury effects him again. Like Eduardo it's impossible to tell if he can ever recover fully and I suppose if he hasn't done it in four years what are the chances that it ever will happen.

Let's hope that both Ramsey and Eduardo don't both end up with stop start careers for the remainder of their time at Arsenal. I wasn't too pushed on Diaby last season but he has been excellent in the majority of games he has played this season and I really hope he is fit for tomorrow night too.

That's about it for today and I'll do a full preview of the game tomorrow.

Here's a very good Champions league hat trick for us against Roma by Henry.

See you tomorrow.