Barcelona’s Gerard Pique has lashed out at his team mates over their attempts to unsettle Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas.

The furious 24-year-old Spain international told the Spanish newspaper Sport: “We must leave Cesc in peace and let things run their course.”

His midfield colleague Xavi was the latest Barcelona player to go public about Fabregas earlier this week, earning a stinging rebuke from Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

Other players from the Blaugranes to have made unprompted comments include Andres Iniesta, Dani Alves and Pedro Rodriguez.

Even the mayor of Fabregas’ home town got in on the act this week, suggesting the Arsenal stalwart had been ‘kidnapped’ by his club.

Many observers see the barrage of comments as an orchestrated campaign by Barcelona FC to unsettle Fabregas and force Arsenal to sell him at under his market value.

There is growing speculation that the blatant nature of the campaign is alarming the European game’s top echelons, with UEFA preparing to step in to remind Barcelona of their responsibilities. If the Catalans ignore the warning sanctions could follow.

Rounding on his colleagues Pique said: “Any player suffers when there’s so much talk about his future.”

He added that although Barcelona’s players had always talked with respect, their comments were damaging the Arsenal number four and they should stop immediately.

End of news story.

Note to Readers:

This story accurately uses the same quotes that were used in yesterday’s coverage of Pique’s remarks.

It’s quite clear that while Pique was offering a partial defence of Xavi, he was also saying that his team mates should stop talking about Cesc.

Strangely the British press chose only to focus on the former interpretation, with not a mention of Pique’s “shut up” message to his fellow players.

A typical headline was “Pique defends Xavi comments” (ITV Football).

There’s a simple reason for that. The media has decided that Arsenal are in crisis, that Fabregas and Nasri are going and that “big” players don’t want to join us.

Once their pack mentality kicks in, they willfully ignore facts that contradict this over-riding narrative (such as the second half of Pique’s comments). In fact, once Fleet Street decides on its narrative it’s harder to turn than a supertanker.

If you want further evidence, just look at the garbage written by Sam Wallace in The Independent, under the headline “Jagielka snub shows Arsenal’s fading appeal.”

Regulars will know I have banged on about this a lot, but it really does my head in.

And by writing the Pique story the way it could quite reasonably have been presented with exactly the same facts, I hope it will go some small way towards helping Arsenal fans realise they should pay less attention to what they read. Most of it is made up and the rest is twisted to suit whatever agenda the journalists and their paymasters want.

Ignore the bullsh*t. Wait for the facts.

RockyLives

Well, that was without doubt that most bizarrely awful refereeing decision I have ever seen.

Robin van Persie is put through on goal, the ref whistles for offside, a second later Robin shoots.

The referee gives him a second yellow for time wasting and he’s off.

I was watching with some Arsenal fans and some who support other teams. Every single one of them thought it was a disgraceful decision.

In the excitement of a Champions League game, in a crowd of 90,000 where the home fans always whistle loudly when the opposition has the ball, the referee decided that Robin heard the whistle and ignored it. All within a second.

The first thought that came into my head was “have they bought the ref?”

I discounted it equally quickly.

Notwithstanding some glaring examples to the contrary (like Bernard Tapie’s Marseilles regime) I don’t believe there is much corruption in football.

So it’s just plain incompetence, from an official who allowed himself to be influenced and intimidated by the crowd all through the game (witness all the Arsenal bookings in the first half, while Barca fouls, particularly on Nasri, went unpunished).

Whatever, it killed the game. At the time of the sending off it was 1-1 and Arsenal were on course to qualify.

Barcelona, as we have come to expect, had most of the possession and occasionally played some breathtaking football. But Arsenal were defending with great determination, clearly wanting to keep it tight until we could open up in the final 15 minutes when our superior fitness would reap dividends, as it has done before against Barca.

Would we have qualified if RvP had stayed on? We’ll never know, but I suspect we would have been in with a damn good chance. But trying to play with 10 men against the best pass-and-move team in the world was never going to have a happy ending.

So here’s my match report, such as it is:

First half, we defended really well and restricted Barca to very few clear chances, even thought they dominated possession. I’m sure many a heart was a-flutter when Szczesney went off with an injured finger to be replaced by Almunia, but Manuel did really well throughout the game and can’t be faulted for their goals.

When Barca did tiptoe their way through our defence, usually Djourou or Koscielny was there to clear things up. It was nervy, no doubt, but it reminded me of Parma 1994.

Then, in added time in the first half, Cesc made a stupid, stupid mistake, trying a fancy back-heel on the edge of our box. I doubt he would have tried that at The Grove, but he was having an anonymous game and maybe wanted to try and prove a point with some fancy play at the Nou Camp. We lost the ball, a couple of quick passes later and Messi was one-on-one with Almunia and scored at the second attempt. Half time 0-1.

Second half, we carried on soaking up pressure. It was a dangerous game but we were working hard, closing Barcelona down and occasionally riding our luck. Almunia was called on to make some great blocks at the feet of the Barca attackers. Then Nasri won a corner and when it came over a huge leap by Diaby was enough to confuse the Barca defenders and the own goal went in off the head of Busquets. Cue pandemonium among the Arsenal faithful.

Barca almost created a goal from the re-start but then we regained our shape and continued to defy them. I was thinking that if we could just hold it at 1-1 until around the 70^th minute we would start to step up a gear and maybe even get a second.

Unfortunately it was at that point that the Swiss referee decided to hand Barcelona the tie.

Down to ten men, the Barca onslaught was inevitable. Their second goal was a classic Barcelona move rounded off by Xavi – a really great goal. Their third was a soft penalty (Koscielny adjudged to have fouled Pedro) which was calmly slotted home by Messi.

We had one great chance to steal the tie, when Bendtner was clean through in the final minutes, but everything that’s wrong with the big Dane was evident in his clumsy first touch and the chance went begging. Would Robin have converted it? Very possibly.

In the end, all those who said it’s better to go out now than in the semis or the final have been given their wish. And the manner of our defeat – the blatant injustice of Robin’s sending off – may help drive us on in the other competitions. Time will tell. But I was left angry and dejected by it all.

No question Barcelona play sublime football, although some of their play-acting and cheating lets them down. I would like them to go on and win the competition simply because their style of play deserves to be successful.

I hope Arsene plays the strongest team possible against Manchester United on Saturday. This is not the time to have our ‘cup team’ take another spanking at Old Trafford.

RockyLives

Player Ratings

Szczesney: Digitally challenged. No score.

Sagna: Picked up where he left off in the Carling Cup, unfortunately. His form has suddenly gone off in the last couple of weeks. He did OK, but his ball use was poor as was some of his decision making. 6

Djourou: Good game from big Johan. Tracked the Barca players well and made some great interceptions. 7

Koscielny: Also did well, particularly given his early yellow card. Like many of our team he occasionally flirted with danger by over-elaborating having won the first ball, but overall pretty good. 7

Clichy: A bit wayward positionally at times but got forward well when he could. Decent effort. 6.5

Fabregas: Anonymous and caused their first goal with a stupid back-heel. 4

Diaby: Out of his depth in this quality. Tried hard but always needed a second longer than he ought to have done on the ball. 5

Wilshere: Always working, always trying, another really good effort from Jack. Showed his inexperience and naivety at the death by taking a short free kick in stoppage time when he should have waited for everyone to get in the box and then just hoofed one in. 7

Rosicky: Closed down well but overall pretty anonymous. 5

Nasri: Worked hard down the left flank all game long and looked our most promising outlet. Was consistently fouled without any protection from the ref. 7

Van Persie: Very difficult for him as the lone striker, but kept running and kept showing for the ball until his disgraceful sending-off. 7

Subs

Almunia: Outstanding game from the Spaniard. Blocked countless on-target attempts. No chance for the Barca goals.  MoTM 8

Arshavin: Looked busy and dangerous as we chased the game.  7

Bendtner: It’s all about that terrible touch when he had a chance to get us into the quarter-finals. His skills sadly lag way behind his ego. 4