Some consolation for Arsenal supporters as Chelsea crash out in dramatic fashion

Barcelona and Gunner legend Thierry Henry are heading to the CL final. I couldn’t be happier for them. The probably don’t deserve it and their progression will be debated for a while still, but their success was made sweeter by the devastating fashion in which is was achieved. Chelsea dominated the game, should have had at least two penalty awards and lost the tie in literally the dying seconds. Watching Ashley Cole on the verge of tears was a wonderful sight and watching the Chelsea players behave in predictably poor fashion was almost better. No one likes Michael Ballack and his near assault on the referee was exactly what you’d expect from a man of his ilk.

True, Michel Platini made all the controversial calls in the match via a headset in the match referee’s ear. What’s so surprising about that? You didn’t really think that the bastard would let two English clubs reach the final again did you? Let alone the SAME two English clubs! Never. And for once, I couldn’t be happier with Platini for his blatant rigging of the match.

The irony is that all the big decisions made in this game were wrong. The penalties should have been awarded, but the red card for Abidal was an absolute joke. It should be interesting watching Barca take on United without their starting left-back or right-back. Alves has no one to blame but himself for his card. He practically begged for it.

Chelsea can bitch and moan all they want about the refereeing, but the fact remains that Drogba had a one-on-one with Valdes and choked. He was screaming into the camera at the end of the match, but he might have been better off screaming into a mirror. Typical modern athelete ideology: it’s everyone else’s fault but mine. What an ass.

As an Arsenal supporter, I could only sit back and watch Chelsea disintegrate from Europe with a huge smirk on my face. It would have been sad for Henry to be knocked out of the competition when he wasn’t able to play. Now he’ll have a chance to win the one trophy that has eluded him. Although, he will likely be the underdog once again.

There’s no real Arsenal news worth discussing. I think I could revisit the “let’s get rid of Adebayor” issue right now, but it’s not worth it. Here’s something worth thinking about for next season: Nasri, Walcott, Cesc and Arshavin are probably our best players. They should all be on the pitch at the same time. Since they can’t all play in the midfield, one of them will be playing as a striker or directly behind the striker. That means we can afford to be a little more carefree about mister Adebayor this summer. What we could use, is someone with clinical finishing skills and the attitude to play every minute the proper way.

By the way, if you want to see the difference between where we currently are and where we need to be, you need only look at our holding midfielders versus Barcelona’s. We have Alex Song, Denilson and Diaby. All of them very nice players, but let’s face it, they’re not world class. Tonight you saw world class holding play from Yaya Toure. It wasn’t his best game, but he was the last line of defense on several occasions and got the job done. We could have used someone like that. It also makes me wonder why Wenger has been so adamant about not converting Kolo into a midfielder. He has the game for it. It just isn’t an option according to the boss.

Not much to say except congrats to Chelsea for failing so spectacularly. I thought our match the night before was as disappointing as it gets, but in truth, I’m glad we didn’t crash out the way Chelsea did. I couldn’t have handled it.

We play them this weekend in a game between the two most disspirited teams in Europe. Should be interesting.