Malcolm Sterling is a life-long Gooner with an appreciation for defensive midfielders and "seeing games out". Favourite players include Emmanuel Petit, Gilberto and Michael Thomas. Hates social media more than he hates "that poxy radio clown" but loves horses more than Michael Owen and enjoys a football flutter. Malcolm misses Highbury more than he can express despite only managing to visit fewer times than he's been to the Emirates.
Project youth at Arsenal failed miserably with most of Arsenal's best players leaving for richer shores and greater chances of silverware and many promising youngsters leaving before their prime. It's no secret that Arsenal need a fair few players in the summer, as they have for time immemorial, but this season has shown a weakness to Arsenal beyond the '2 players and we'd walk the league' opinion that's circled the Emirates for 4 seasons.
Arsenal and the Champions League has gone hand in hand for the past 19 years but there is now a real risk we could be exiting the competition for a while. Once more we bombed out in the knockout rounds after giving ourselves a tricky draw against Barcelona by failing to top our group - again.
I jest. Barcelona showed last night why they are the best team on the planet - a little trio dubbed MSN; Messi, Suarez and Neymar. Fight as Arsenal might, most teams will leave a two-legged match with Barcelona as the losing side. It can be argued there was some valiance to Arsenal's displays as they created plenty of chances to score and as deserved as Barca's win was the aggregate score possibly flatters them. Were it not for a lot of wayward finishing from Arsenal it might have been a closer aggregate contest - although you'd probably still back Barcelona to emerge triumphant.
