Arsenal’s striker, Robin van Persie, labelled his double yellow against Barcelona as "a total joke"
Arsenal’s striker, Robin van Persie, has claimed that his sending off in the Gunners’ latest UEFA Champions League defeat against Barcelona at Nou Camp was "a total joke".
Van Persie said, “I think (the red card) had a big influence. I think it's a http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Total-c40747 joke - how can I hear this whistle with 95,000 people jumping up (and shouting)? That makes it even worse. I cannot understand that view from the ref. If there were four,
five, six seconds in between, you can make a check (for offside). One second, it's a joke”.
He added, “I tried to explain there were 95,000 people jumping up, how can I hear the whistle? He's been bad all evening, whistling against us. I don't know why he's here tonight. We feel betrayed a bit, when it was 1-1 it was all to play for and in my opinion
this referee killed the game”.
The Dutch striker was shown the first yellow card in the dying stages of the first half when he slapped Daniel Alves in the face. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Robin-van-Persie-c31380 was awarded a second yellow card for time wastage, which happened to be an occurrence that no one apart from
the match official Massimo Busacca was aware of.
Arsene Wenger also expressed his disappointment over the officiating of the match and seconded his striker by saying that the match officials killed the game for the Gunners.
However, Persie and Co. were completely outplayed by Barcelona at Nou Camp despite entering the match with a one goal advantage. The Catalans dominated the game from the first whistle to the last one and enjoyed 61% possession in the whole 90 minutes.
Barcelona started the match with a more attacking approach and mostly kept the ball in Arsenal’s half.
The Gunners were also up to the task and managed to control Barca attack for most of the time. However, Arsenal suffered a huge blow when their keeper, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Daniel-c9879 Alves set-piece.
Manuel Almunia replaced the 20-year-old polish keeper and played a huge role in keeping Barcelona at bay on most of the occasions.
After numerous attacks on Arsenal’s goal, Barcelona finally managed to find a breakthrough in the injury time of the first half.
Messi scored from inside the 18-yard-box with a delicate chip over the in-form Gunners’ keeper, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Manuel-Almunia-c23386.
Once again, Arsenal bounced back in the second half and http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Sergio-Busquets-c33048 scored an own from Samir Nasri’s corner to level the score at Nou Camp.
Few minutes later, Robin van Persie’s harsh sending off completely changed the course of the game and credit should be given to Barcelona for fully exploiting their one man advantage.
In the 69th minute Xavi levelled the score on aggregate by netting the ball from inside the penalty box and two minutes later the Catalans were awarded a penalty after http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Laurent-Koscielny-c21742 inside the 18-yard-box.
Messi stepped up to take the penalty and the striker exceptionally took the spot kick to complete his brace.
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Arsenal-c38429 out of the UEFA Champions League for the second consecutive season.
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