5 reasons for Arsenal to feel optimistic ahead of Barcelona match

Things are looking pretty bleak for Arsenal after an FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Watford at the weekend which applied renewed pressure to manager Arsene Wenger.

Arsenal's season is on the brink of collapse after a run of just four wins in 14 matches in all competitions, Wenger has hit out at media speculation over his future, which he branded a “farce”, and supporters were even reported to be coming to blows outside Emirates Stadium.

Even Ian Wright, an Arsenal loyalist and a man who last week made an impassioned attack on a supporter who unfurled a banner calling for Wenger to go in the FA Cup win away to Hull, has been openly speculating about a parting of ways after the Watford loss.

"It's like a divorce that has to happen,” he said on a Sun podcast. “It's run its course, you ain't angry with her anymore, she's not angry with you. You're in that place that everybody knows now that we might as well just finish it.”

These are dark days at Emirates Stadium, so it can only be regarded as unfortunate that their next match comes against the best team on the planet, with Wenger taking his team to Camp Nou to face Barcelona in the second leg of their Champions League last-16 match.

Arsenal are 2-0 down from the first leg and Barcelona are on a club record run of 37 games unbeaten in all competitions. It seems a foregone conclusion. Maybe it is: no club has ever lost their home leg 2-0 and gone through in European competition before.

But instead of succumbing to the fatalism around Arsenal, we thought we’d try and find some reasons for optimism ahead of their match against Barcelona…

Bookies are no fools and while Barcelona are clear favourites, you can get odds of 20/1 for Arsenal to qualify for the quarter-finals: in other words, it’s unlikely, but it’s not that unlikely. You can get similar odds for Eddie Redmayne to be the next James Bond or Ted Cruz to be the next American president – neither of which are completely out of the question. And lest we forget, Leicester City were 5,000-1 to win the Premier League at the start of the season.

Barca’s 6-0 destruction of Getafe at the weekend featured a familiar sight for Liga fans. Not Lionel Messi scoring, although he did, and not Messi assisting, although he did that as well, but the best player in the world missing a penalty. Barcelona have now won an astonishing 20 penalties this season; what is even more amazing is that they have failed to score 10 of them. Messi and Neymar have both scored four from eight and Luis Suarez has scored two from four. As Santi Gimenez wrote in As: "A penalty for Barcelona is now taken by the Camp Nou as something vulgar, not worthy of taking too seriously."

But in a knockout competition penalties can come into play in a big way. Suspend your disbelief for a moment and imagine Arsenal do manage to score twice to level the tie on aggregate – who do you back to win a shoot-out? Okay, probably Barcelona. But still, Arsenal might have a chance.

Barcelona have lost just three times this season and not at all since the start of October, but if you analyse each of those defeats an interesting pattern emerges. Athletic Bilbao beat them 4-0 in the Spanish Super Cup, Celta Vigo 4-1 in the league and Sevilla 2-1, also in the league. The common characteristic? Barcelona’s opponents scored more goals than the Catalans. It’s a lesson Arsenal would do well to heed.

Okay, so the FA Cup has gone, but technically Arsenal are still in the Premier League title race, even if Leicester City enjoy a healthy advantage at the top, and can go into Wednesday’s Champions League match against Barcelona boosted by the knowledge that another trophy is now within their grasp. It might not have got much press, but majority owner Stan Kroenke is up for a big prize.

A well-deserved accolade for his hugely ambitious stewardship of Arsenal, which thanks to his aggressive transfer market policy has pushed the club onto a new level of success.

Barca’s 37-game unbeaten streak has been understandably praised in the build-up to the game but what has gone unreported is the fact that the number 38 is cursed, according to Catalans. Patron Saint Jordi was a prosperous merchant in Girona in the 13th century before his business was destroyed by a freak flood at the age of 38. Catalan armies suffered heavy defeats in the Franco-Spanish War in 1638 and the War of the Spanish Succession in 1738. Spookily, Catalunya’s first political shot at independence was also defeated by 38 votes in the Spanish congress of deputies. *