How can Arsenal beat Barcelona? The experts have their say

Arsenal have the task of facing possibly the greatest ever team to play the game on Tuesday night in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 meeting, with Barcelona still on course to repeat last season’s treble.

If anything, they have improved this season. Barca are currently eight points clear in La Liga and their run of 32 games unbeaten in all competitions is a club record.

They have seen off Arsenal over two legs in 2010 and 2011, as well as beating Arsene Wenger’s side in the Champions League final of 2006, so the odds are firmly stacked against the North Londoners ahead of Tuesday’s game.

But can they do the unthinkable and actually beat Barcelona? Some of football’s finest minds have been trying to answer that question, and we’ve pulled together some valuable lessons for Arsenal.

Thierry Henry is one of many recent players with a foot in both camps, but inarguably the most successful. A winner of two Premier Leagues and three FA Cups with Arsenal, he also helped Barca to an unprecedented six trophies in 2009 under Pep Guardiola.

Arsenal’s all-time record goalscorer advocates a change of approach from Wenger, who has only very rarely tempered his team’s attacking instincts. However, it is an approach which has worked in recent times: notably a 2-0 win at Manchester City in January 2015 and the 2-0 win over Bayern Munich at home in the Champions League earlier this season.

“They have to accept they will probably only have 30 per cent possession and must be so efficient when they do get the ball,” Henry wrote in his Sun column. “The whole team must defend more as a unit and the wingers must tuck in and play more in their own half. You very rarely get the chance to play against Barcelona so you must be prepared to sacrifice parts of your attacking game, home and away.

“Arsenal must be brave on the ball. They need to stay compact, play on the counter and score every time they get in their penalty area. They can’t be exposed in the middle and must force Barcelona to run back 60 yards before they get the ball. If you allow them to stay in your half for wave after wave, it becomes almost impossible to defend.”

The question of how to stop Barcelona is one that has probably been swirling around Arsene Wenger’s head ever since the draw was made. He is taking a similar stance to Henry regarding the need to focus on defence, also warning his players that they can’t repeat past mistakes in the Champions League and go out after losing in the first leg, despite a brave but futile fight in the second.

This model saw them lose to AC Milan 4-3 on aggregate in 2012 after losing the first leg 4-0; lose to Bayern Munich on away goals in 2013 after losing the first leg 3-1; and lose to Monaco on away goals in 2015 after losing the first leg 3-1. For Wenger, it is imperative that Arsenal make home advantage count on Tuesday with a daunting visit to Barcelona to come.

“It’s our best chance no matter how big the chance is,” said Wenger. “We have to take it and have a go at them. I believe in these big games, in the first tie at home, we can’t be stupid. Many times we’ve won away and at home we have conceded. We have to find a good balance between defending and attacking.”

Laurent Koscielny is one of the Arsenal players who will be tasked with shutting down an attacking trident of Luis Suarez, Neymar and Lionel Messi which has combined for 91 goals already this season. It is not for nothing that the French centre-back has described them as “the best offensive armada in Europe or even the world.”

But in an interview with Telefoot this week, Koscielny also said Arsenal can stop the famed MSN from scoring if they defend from front to back, and maintain a high level of organisation. He also cited Arsenal’s new-found potency on the counter-attack as being an asset.

“Yes it's possible,” said Koscielny. “We have a great goalkeeper and beyond that when you talk about defence it's not only the back four. The whole team have to make the link between each line. If we're capable - and we've already done it in certain Premier League matches - to play deep, to know how to defend together and afterwards to counter them, we have a chance of getting a good result against Barca.”

Some of the greatest football minds in Fleet Street are applying themselves to the question. Gabriele Marcotti, European Football Correspondent for The Times, highlights Barcelona’s apparent struggles on the road as a possible avenue for Arsenal to explore. And unlike previous advice urging caution on Arsenal’s part, he draws the conclusion that attacking Barcelona and seizing the initiative could be the best way forward.

“What created so much trouble for Enrique’s team against Las Palmas and Levante was that the opposition adopted a cavalier, nothing-to-lose attitude from the start,” Marcotti writes. “Barcelona did not expect to be attacked in this way from the first minute. Rather than hunkering down and pursuing an improbable counterattack, the home side came out fighting. If they were going to lose, they would at least put on a show, and they did.

“In an interview on Saturday, Javier Mascherano noted that ‘being a centre-back for Barça is not like being a centre-back for any other team’ which is why he can do it so well despite being only 5ft 8in. Most of his job involves sweeping up in midfield, because the opposition sit so deep. Yet when they don’t — when the other team come out swinging and it’s Barcelona on the back foot — Mascherano and the back four can run into trouble. Particularly when it’s the last thing Enrique expects them to do, as was the case away to Las Palmas. You wonder if bigger clubs — starting with Arsenal — might adopt a similar blueprint and go for the jugular at home, thinking they might have little to lose.”

Michael Cox looks at the recent head-to-head record between the two clubs to derive some understanding of what approach Arsenal need to take on Tuesday. Noting that Arsenal were far more effective in their home match in 2011, winning 2-1, than when almost being blown away but somehow drawing 2-2 in 2010, Cox pinpoints a much more aggressive pressing game as being responsible, as well as Arsenal’s ability to better cope with Barcelona’s own pressing 12 months on. However, according to the brains behind Zonal Marking, Arsenal have to choose their moments to press Barcelona on Tuesday night.

“In the opening stages, Arsenal should press and make it a high-tempo game,” he writes. “They've done this excellently in previous matches against this standard of opposition, particularly in the meeting with Bayern Munich a couple of seasons ago when their excellent start would have been rewarded with the lead had Ozil not missed a penalty. The blitz at home to Manchester United in October, during which Arsenal raced into a 3-0 lead, was also an example of a match where Wenger had clearly told his players to start extremely quickly.

“It's impossible to press for the entire game, however, and at some point Arsenal must retreat. This retreat probably needs to be extremely dramatic and definitely needs to be cohesive because if Arsenal stop pressing high up the pitch and continue to hold a high line, they'll be punished with long balls in behind the defence. Indeed, that was precisely their problem against Barcelona in the 2-2 draw back in 2010 - Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored both goals following long balls from defence. Similarly, the winner in Barca's aforementioned recent win against Atletico came when Dani Alves knocked a simple long ball in behind for Luis Suarez, a combination that has proved effective this season.”

And in a fascinating column for ESPN FC which deserves to be read in full, Cox concludes:

“Even the best-laid plans can fail, of course, against arguably the most terrifying front three the Champions League has ever seen but Arsenal must be intelligent in their approach. They will probably look to starve Messi, Suarez and Neymar of service in the early stages before starving them of space for the majority of the game.”

The Mirror’s man in Spain, Ed Malyon, gives some encouragement to Arsenal by explaining that Barca had a long trip to play Las Palmas in the Canary Islands – with their match on Saturday taking them “twice as far” as they will have to travel to take on Arsenal. He also picks out five things Arsenal must do to have a chance, including dropping Per Mertesacker. He also agrees with Cox that an aggressive press from the front could unsettle the Catalans.

“The high press seems to be the fashionable thing right now, but Barca have struggled with teams getting in their faces and putting pressure on defenders in possession,” he writes. “Crucially, this cuts off the supply of clean ball to Sergio Busquets and disrupts their desired patterns of play. Atletico Madrid played a pair of wingers as a front two so they had the speed and energy to shut down Barca, while Malaga and Athletic Club have also caused Luis Enrique's side problems by hassling their back four. Olivier Giroud doesn't have the speed across the ground to trouble Barcelona's defenders, but a fast, energetic twosome - like Alexis Sanchez and Theo Walcott - could be the perfect tonic.”