UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
February 23, 2016 • 19:45 • Emirates Stadium, London
Referee: C. Çakιr
Arsenal v Barcelona Live Streams

Arsene Wenger admitted on Monday (22 February) that Barcelona are huge favourites to beat Arsenal in the Champions League and consign the club to a sixth straight loss in the last 16 round.

“Our world is not perfect and no team is perfect, but they are not far from it, Barcelona, I must say. We have to use every moment in the game where we have a chance to score and as I said to you after the game against Hull where we had 70 per cent of the ball, we didn’t make a lot of it, against Barcelona we’ll have much less of the ball and we’ll have to make more of it.”

“You sum up well our last experiences, we can have a good opportunity to show that we have learned because it’s true that we give ourselves a difficult time every time after the first home leg. Maybe because we’re a bit too keen to make the difference in the first game. We have to find the right balance between being audacious, because that’s what you will need to be against Barcelona, but as well as Olivier just said be strong defensively as a unit and not put ourselves in front of a very difficult task in the second leg.”

Arsenal striker, Olivier Giroud, spoke on Monday (February 22) about the pressure that comes with being a professional footballer. The Frenchman was speaking ahead of Arsenal’s last 16 tie with Barcelona at the Emirates on Tuesday.

“I think it will be a different game, but it’s true that we can do very well in the Champions League – we just need to focus and be 100 per cent all together with good team cohesion. We will put what we need into this game, a lot of commitment, determination and obviously this kind of game against Bayern needs to help us to win tomorrow.”

“It’s very exciting. I’m very excited for the match. Of course there is going to be a little bit of pressure, but there always is. We’re professional footballers, we always have pressure, it’s our profession. With regards to this next meeting, we need to concentrate, work and train hard. So yes, it’s very exciting, we’ll have to concentrate a lot, and we’ll feel the pressure.”

Barcelona land in London brimming with confidence in both their training session and news conference on Monday (22 February) ahead of their Champions League quarter-final against Arsenal.

Luis Enrique, Barcelona coach
On how to motivate Messi, Neymar, Suarez
“What I say is abracadabra and all the magic comes out just before the game and all the energy flows. Now – we work as always. I’ve always had the possibility of having very good strikers and in this case I’ve got the best, without doubt, in the world and that’s very easy and there are moments where you can’t imagine or desire what they’re going to do because they will always go above that.”

On playing vs Arsenal
“Our objective, as always, is to win the game. To win the game we have to score a goal and score more than the rival. We’ve got to be superior than them to beat them. They are very strong, very powerful, difficult and we will try and dominate play. Arsenal have a lot of quality players and a very dangerous striker and a tough unit.”


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