Fabregas Shows Gibbs Support

Feel sorry for Gibbs, he's worked his heart out for us. But you can argue that young and inexperienced players like himself should not be put in the position they're being put in at Arsenal. It's unfair to let all the weight rest on such youngsters. High quality experience is needed. Arsene has had his head up his rectum about this issue for too long now.

If Wenger had played Eboue or Silvestre at LB instead of Gibbs and we lost then he would have got just as much stick for not selecting Gibbs who has done pretty well so far. Fabianski had a 'mare against Chelsea and recovered. Gibbs needs to be just as strong.

Wenger gets criticised for believing in his youngsters, yet when he makes a change he gets criticised for not believing in his youngster. I'm surprised the gaffer has any hair left at all.

Gibbs was made to deputize Clichy and was immediately started in big games at Anfield, Wembley and OT -- and overall came thru pretty well for such an inexperienced player. Rocky, it's true, AW can't win. Imagine if Eboue or Silvestre had played there and made an error, he'd be trashed for not playing Gibbs!

Fabregas performing a captains role and getting behind the young members of the squad - the old fart that he is! lol

Well he did turn 22 this week. So just a couple more years until retirement.

I cannot believe that someone his age has played 200 odd games for us already, amazing. Although this has to be his worst season in terms of overall form and performances that is only due to his exceptionally high standards set previously. Most teams would welcome a Fabregas at 75% with open arms over half their other midfielders.

is it true that the suspicious package the sniffer dog was looking for at half time was a trophy?

Somebody started a rumour that there was Spuds fan with a brain in that section- of course it was just a cruel hoax because that's about as likely as finding Nessie.

Arsene may have his hair left, but our team as sure made him go grey! As for Gibbs, he will learn from this, I hope he starts on Sunday against Chelski!

Who would want to be the manager of Arsenal with stupid comments like 'Arsene has had his head up his rectum about this issue for too long now.' Thank god he doesn't read our blog. And before anyone says its his opinion well this is mine.

He has nothing to be ashamed of. It wasnt even a mistake, he was in the right place at the right time and the gods were just against him.

Apparently Nicky was out on the tiles last night but has apologist to the club and the fans, if only all our players were this quick to respond when they do something wrong. Here’s the link. http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11670_5289907,00.html

Too distraught to write anything comprehensible last nite but looking back now,I have to say THIS team has arguably over-achieved this season. How many thought this team will make it to 2 semis with the way we were playing before Christmas. We battled past Roma;brushed Villareal aside and were knocked out by the defending champions. Other so called teams with experience& big names like Madrid,Juve,Inter, Munchen are no where in sight. Now its up to Wenger if he wants to push on by signing a few quality players who will impact on the team and add depth and improve the team or keep believing and experimenting with these set of players.(Quality players dont necessarily mean big money players)no matter what is said here its up to Wenger

It's barca V utd in the final, come on Henry get your medal.

It's barca V utd in the final, come on Henry get your medal.

then return home

The chav site has crashed. Spud virus I assume. The drooling hordes of the lane are coming.

Cesc is doing what he should be doing as Captain of The Arsenal, I wouldn't expect anything less. "Win as a Team, Lose as a Team"

Spot on D'arsassin. I thought this team would finish 5th in the PL, they are now going to be comfortable in 4th place. Something like 21 games unbeaten and a semi final place in the CL. How many previous Arsenal teams have reached a semi final? A great and bitter disappointment Tuesday night but this team has done very, very well - not as good as we would wish and we look for more in the future, but the 'Boys done good!' Gibbs should hold his head up high, he has been amazing and one accidental slip doesn't now make him a bad player. Mark my words he will be a great player for us and for England one day.

(Off subject sorry) jaelle sorry can not agree with you totally. Although I am not a chelski supporter or ever would or want to be, last night they were the better team as far as football went. Barca stroked the ball around but like us but that doesn't always win games. The ref was appalling and I could agree there would appear (but I really don't believe it ) some reason it had to be other than an all English final;(before someone starts i know they come from all over the planet). That said the behavior of their team really requires severe penalties. The attack on the ref was unparalleled, unpardonable and a disgrace to how football is going in this modern age. If Chelski are let off the hook then heaven help us all. Up until then it was a great game of football, (including the ref stuff ups, how would we have felt if it had been us) but after that 90 minutes it was all down hill. The game is in trouble if ref's are treated this way. (All this is just IMO).

Chelsea were robbed last night! John Terry's Mum said she had nothing to do with it!

As much as i hate chelsea, they were truly robbed last night. Though nothing can justify the way Drogba and Ballack acted after the finall whistle. Looking at very lengthy bans those two.

ag, sorry, I can't agree that Chelsea were the "better team." I understand how Chelsea supporters feel, gooners have been thru such injustices before. But Barca had 1, maybe 2 legitimate penalty calls in the first leg ignored too. Plus in the 2nd leg Abidal's red card was totally uncalled for. So it's not as if Chelsea were the only team hard done by. Furthermore, if anyone had started watching the game after Abidal's send-off and heard the commentator say the phrase "playing with 10 men," that person would be perfectly right to assume the commentator was talking about Chelsea fighting bravely with only 10 men given the way they were playing. Certainly that viewer would be surprised to realize that the commentator was referring to the ATTACKING team, the only team on the pitch trying to ATTACK with 10 men down while 11-man Chelsea just sat back and defended. I'm supposed to be impressed by a team with the expensive, big, strong talents of Chelsea defending with 11 men against a physically smaller and weaker team of 10 men who are the only team on the pitch trying to create chances? And for all the ridicule of Barca's defense (a makeshift one at that), they did pretty damned well against a team that's supposedly so superior. How can anyone call Chelsea the "better" team in that game? Can't say Barca were brilliant either but with 10 men and they're the only ones on the pitch still creating chances and launching persistent attacks? No question, they deserved to go thru. Getting past Utd of course, is another question entirely. // On another matter, can't understand all this media outrage in the UK over the penalty call against Fletcher. Yes, it's sad he'll miss the final and I don't think he should've been sent off. But the guy clearly fouled Cesc, it doesn't matter if he got the ball.

i love this picture...3 ex arsenal players...cashley slouching in disappointment and henry and hleb in the backgroundhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/football/gallery/2009/may/06/champions-league-chelsea-barcelona?picture=346987856

As for Beckham, (he looked like someone rubbing salt into our wounds) the true colours come out; why do we persist in helping others (Hull example) when they just spit in our faces?

also, ag, re Becks---he was sitting with Flamini who was visibly upset with Becks for the way he was acting. He's still a supporter. And yes, our club has a real masochistic streak. I bet you if Hull asked for some other kind of favor, the geniuses at Arsenal would readily agree, and with a big smile too.

I have to say I am enjoying Hleb's bit-part role at Barca. He barely played if at all in the CL semis. He would have been a definite starter if he had stayed with us... Warming the bench is the summit of his ambition, same with Flamini....

Defensive or offensive, both are styles of football and both are within the laws of the game, so whether a team is using either tactic is totally their prerogative and because we have been spoilt recently I sense a certain "snobbishness" when other play defensively from other gooners. Don't forget under GG we were 10 times worse than Chelsea have been recently and I don't recall many gooners being happy to be slagged off by other teams fans......Beckhams a knob and always will be, glad Fergie blanked him. Why was Flamini there? As for next season, I hope we turn the heating off in Hull's dressing room and pi** in their team bath before they arrive, maybe dish out a few turd burgers for them in their lockers also before half time, nothing more than the way a club that has acted like that deserves to be treated, the scabby oompa loompa look a like!

That sounds about right, although some people cannot help that due to age, some are late converts and others are the more recent Johnny come latelies that the club has attracted through placing more importance on the corporate side of things.

Thank you SO much for the patronizing scolding but I started following Arsenal during Graham's second to last season while working and living in London. I know very well what it means to watch boring-boring-Arsenal and how we were often ridiculed for it, so you can take your superiority complex elsewhere. As for Barca, I stand by my admiration for Barca and happiness that they've gone thru, don't give a damn about who got how many shots on target yadayadayada. Chelsea got ONE shot on target at the Camp Nou and failed to score. Barca got ONE shot on target and scored, boo hoo. These two games were an extremely hard game emotionally for Barca's players -- over 180 mins. of dominating play, you go past 1 player, you go past 2 players, and then there's 3 more players to go past, then 4, and to do that for more than 180 mins. and have the mental strength to keep on doing it as your football-loving soul is destroyed by defenders just getting pieces of the ball knocking it away destroying the flow of the game but you keep at it, PLAYING FOOTBALL while the other team just stands there doing nothing but destroying your work, you keep on going and goin...Iniesta and Xavi--I have no idea what mileage they racked up but it must have been an incredible number...Iniesta, utterly exhausted, in the 95th minute, at that point your tendency is to rock your heels back but he did that only slightly and found the mental and physical strength to strike a brilliant volley to save his team....THAT'S mental toughness, THAT'S resilience, not Chelsea's well-organized spoiler thuggery. Absolutely NOTHING that Chelsea did can compare to the unbelievable effort Barca players put in, nothing. And then there's the unbelievable ignorance to trash Messi in comparion to Cronaldo's performance at the Grove. Messi was triple-marked all night long and constantly fouled while Cronaldo played against a team that gave up all self belif and gave him tons of space.

"Chelsea outplayed Barce" -- sorry, how did they "outplay" Barca exactly? What's your definition of "outplaying?" That's a word I hear Brits use all the time in incredibly vague, lazy fashion. What's your criteria for saying that? What exactly did Chelsea create? The notion that Chelsea were better than Barca is ludicrous--neither was Barca "better" than Chelsea, for that matter. And YOU'RE betraying the British tendency to be incredibly impressed with fake "grit" which amounts to cowardice against a team that dares to play football. It's one thing if Sunderland plays that way against Man Utd (and understandable), not the world's most expensive team with lots of talent. If Barca are so crap, then why is it necessary to fear them so much? Chelsea played from fear, that's all. Barca showed none.

My criteria for that is the passes made/completed ratio. It's the ultimate yardstick in football, and i think that should be worth a goal in itself, simples.

jaelle, I think it is a fact that the EPL is best league in Europe. Having said that it should be also noted where the footballers come from. In the past the best leagues were without doubt from Italy and Spain. I also think and you would have to agree that most people from the football world acknowledge that Messi and Winking Ronaldo,(apart from his diving) are among the best footballers around. Looking at all the footballers around its hard to put but a few British players amounst that group. As I've said before I did think IMO Chelski were unlucky to lose. As for Maradona don't get me started, great player but a bloody cheat.

correction: "FIRST LEG - one legitimate penalty turned down, a legitimate sending off that was not called. (Barca had every reason to feel aggrieved)." -- I refer to Ballack not getting a deserved second yellow card.