Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, has called Lionel Messi the best player in the world after he scored four times to knock Arsenal out of the Champions League.

Barcelona won the tie 6-3 over the two legs and Messi’s performance last night was nothing short of brilliant. He displayed everything that has made him into one of the best players of his generation.

There could have been a shock on the cards when Arsenal went ahead in the match thanks to a Niklas Bendtner toe poke after Theo Walcott struggled to cross the ball into the Barcelona box.

Wenger said: “We lost against a team better than us, with the best player in world. He’s like a PlayStation player — he can take advantage of every mistake we make.”

“Messi is the best player in the world by a distance. He’s not always in the game, but when he is he’s really dangerous. Once he’s on a run he’s unstoppable, the only player who can change direction at such pace and be a threat.”

“He has something exceptional. He has six or seven years in front of him, touch wood that nothing happens to him, and he can reach unbelievable levels. He’s very young, but he can achieve a lot. The defeat is difficult to handle because when you go out of the Champions League, the next day you are in front of a very empty future. Our dreams are involved in that, but you have to address the disappointment and make sure you’re ready for the next game.”

“It’s a big disappointment and we have to recover quickly because we cannot drop any points to have a chance to fight for the Premier League [Arsenal, in third place, trail Chelsea by three points with five games remaining].”

Arsenal goalkeper, Manuel Almunia, added: “He is the best I have faced. He is the best in the world. You try to anticipate what he is going to do but it is so difficult because his skills are so high. He can do what he wants with the ball at any moment.”

Arsenal were ultimately no match for their Spanish opponents but now face a tough battle in the Premier League to try and win back the English crown.

Arsenal can learn things from the way Barcelona played and they now have the experience of what other sides feel when they are playing at their best in English games.

Ultimately it will take a physical team to beat Messi. There are no conventional methods to stop the way he plays so the job has to be to try and make him think he’s going to get hurt every time he gets the ball.

As harsh or as bad as it seems that may be the only way to stop him and one of many tactics that a whole host of teams will be readying to try this summer against Argentina in South Africa.

Arsenal boss, Arsene Wenger, is set to play veteran defender, Sol Campbell, in the heart of the defence against Barcelona.

Arsenal are struggling with injuries to key players and this has led to suggestions that Wenger may opt for his most experienced player as the times start to get tough.

It marks a very remarkable season for Campbell that saw him play one game down in League Two for Notts County before getting a move back to the club he made his name at.

However, there are some sections of the football community that have said playing Campbell would be a very bad move because his pace and age makes him no match for the exciting talent that Barcelona have in their team.

Wenger said: “Ideally I wanted Song available, but he is not, so the decision is between Sol Campbell and Silvestre. The disadvantage of Sol is that it is his second game in four days, while the disadvantage with Silvestre and Vermaelen is that it is two left-footed players.”

“I will make the decision, but Sol is experienced enough to tell me if he is fit enough or not. I trust him completely to be responsible. He is not on an ego trip, and does not want to let the team down.”

“At some stage, if he feels fit to play, then I will make the decision about who starts the game. However, we have to focus on the team performance – if we do not win the ball and give Barcelona the ball at the Nou Camp, then no matter who plays centre-back, he will have problems.”

This is a very fair point because in the first leg in North London, Arsenal were able to play with their best centre back, William Gallas, in the side. Even then Barcelona played such great football that it threatened to tear the team apart.

Wenger could help Campbell out, if he plays, by putting one or two holding midfield players in front of the defence. This would take some of the pressure away from the defence.

After all, they will need all the help they can get to keep the likes of Messi and Xavi quiet.

If Campbell plays then he will know exactly how to deal with the situation. The only thing that will stop him from performing is his age and his lack of pace. Everything else will click in a big game as it so often does.

Arsenal need leaders and big players to get through games like this and as Campbell has captained the club in the past, he may well get the nod as opposed to former Manchester United star, Silvestre.

However, whether the side can keep Barcelona quiet for long enough to steal a goal at the other end does not look like a very likely sequence of events.

Arsenal captain, Cesc Fabregas, has revealed that he has been acting like a little boy in the run up to the club’s Champions League clash with Barcelona.

Fabregas says he has been looking forward to the quarterfinal tie against one of the biggest clubs in Europe. Barca are also a club that the Spaniard has been constantly linked with over the last few seasons.

Arsenal have got a huge task on their hands and will have to play out of their skins in order to win the match. The ultimate strength of the Barca side may be something, which turns out to be too great for them.

Fabregas said: “Ever since the draw was made I’ve dreamt about this game and I am desperate to play in it. I’ve never disguised my affection for Barcelona, it’s where I was brought up and where I learned so many beautiful things about football.”

“But Arsenal have the same principles and this is our chance to show the world that we can stand shoulder to shoulder with Barcelona and emerge triumphant. You can’t imagine how much I want to be part of that.”

“Football is all about moments like this, all about challenges and this is a big challenge for Arsenal and for myself. Individually you want to prove yourself against the biggest players in the world. And that’s Barcelona – they are a team packed full of some of the best players in the world.”

“So you want to show you can play against them, there’s nothing better. To be honest this is the most exciting time of my career and now I want to make it brilliant. You know the next few days are going to be so good because the most important games of the season are coming. Yes, Barcelona are the best team in the world, so if you can avoid them until the final then it is definitely much better. But we are not scared of anyone.”

Barca go to the Emirates with some relatively rocky recent La Liga form. Although the club are still heading the way, alongside Real Madrid, they have seen a large lead slip, allowing their rivals back in.

Arsenal need to play perfect football and ultimately it will be a clash of two sides who like to get the ball down and virtually pass it into the net. The winner will be the side that manages to do this more efficiently.

Barca have a number of match winners who Arsene Wenger would have been worrying about. Lionel Messi is one such player, a player who has defined football brilliance in recent weeks, scoring about a zillion goals in Barca’s last few matches.

Barca also have one of the most gifted midfields in Europe, which will be problematic for Arsenal’s relatively inexperienced side. Andres Iniesta and Xavi are two such players, players who Fabregas has been tipped to replace within the next few seasons.

Andrey Arshavin, Arsenal’s Russian star, has expressed his concern again over the current state of the Arsenal squad.

Arshavin said last season that the club’s manager, Arsene Wenger, needed to be better quality players to increase the strength of the Arsenal squad. Well he still believes it and says it could be the reason the club don’t win the title this year.

Arsenal find themselves in a position that no one expected them to reach before the season started. Arshavin was hailed as another great signing by Wenger but the point is that once a few of the main players get injured, the bones are very clear.

The Russian said: “I am still of the opinion that to win trophies Arsenal needs more players. There is the simple fact that last summer we sold two players and bought only one. So there is an obvious deficit of at least one. Then we lost (Robin) Van Persie, (Kieran) Gibbs and (Aaron) Ramsey for a long time. So for me it is natural we need new players.”

“Without the variety of players we have less diversity in attack. That allows our opponents to read our combinations more easily. Finally, it results in less ball possession for us and our defence comes under more pressure.”

“The Premier League is very interesting, at least as long as we continue fighting to win it. But without new experienced players, real stars, it will be difficult to achieve success.”

“Ideally we need three or four such experienced players and then among our youths there should be guys who are not only good at playing football but have real character.”

Many pundits in the football world have said that had Arsenal had a few more players fit and playing well then they would have already won the title by some considerable distance.

This offers a good contrast to the comments of Arshavin and suggests that the current squad may already be a lot better than he or many other people think.

The other thing that he does not seem to take into consideration is the fact that Wenger does know fully well what he is doing. He clearly knows what to spot in a player and he clearly knows what it takes to make them title contenders.

Arsenal need to have faith in their boss all over again. They have been here before in previous title challenging seasons and this time is no different. The manager, players and the fans all have the experience so it’s time to stop picking potential problems and pull together.

If Arsenal manage to pip both Chelsea and Manchester United to the crown this season, not many will be surprised. They would have been surprised some time ago but having seen the way that Arsenal have played this year this will have been greatly reduced.

It’ll go right down to the wire but the North London club have just a good a chance to win as everyone else.

Arsenal boss, Arsene Wenger, has issued a war cry to his players and told them to make the most of their best title chance over recent seasons.

Arsenal went back to the top of the league temporarily over the weekend and have surprised everyone with the way they have kept their long run of form going.

In recent seasons Arsenal have played well but never quite managed to keep their winning streaks going for long enough to mount a real title challenge. Wenger says the time for his players to act is right now.

He said: “With the results we are making, we can only go from game to game – but we have the desire, we have the quality and let’s see how far we can go. I believe we can go and win the next games. We have that kind of attitude – we keep pushing for the win rather than the draw.”

“We are nearly there to finish for the top three and qualify directly for the Champions League again. The next step is to go for the championship and to have a chance in that we absolutely have to win all of our games.”

“We are in a strong position, but we have to focus on our quality and continue to improve. Let’s be better in our next game. We can show to people that we have improved our consistency – we can turn up every week and win the game.”

“If you had listened to all of the predictions, then we should not have even bothered starting the championship. When we lost against Chelsea at home, and then later against Manchester United here, which I must say was in a convincing way, everybody got a little bit carried away. You lost against one of the main contenders so convincingly, therefore nobody takes you seriously after that.”

Arsenal are also fortunate in the respect that they have the easiest run in of games out of all their title challengers. This means that they are more likely to win the points they need when their rivals are facing much stronger opposition.

Wenger has the experience of being in this position before, but it has been a long time since he was able to taste the title and see it on the horizon.

The problem for this Arsenal side is that they cannot afford to switch off for a second. If they do then the title will be gone to either Manchester or Chelsea. This will be difficult for the younger players who may get a little carried away.

If Arsenal win every game they have then they will be giving themselves the best chance of getting their Premier League crown back. Arsenal fans will probably be more surprised than anyone else, as Wenger has stuck with his football philosophy, which finally looks as though it may pay off. They have kept faith with this generation of players and for good reason and times like this.

Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, has said that any attempt by Real Madrid to try and get him to manage the Spanish giants would be a waste of time.

Madrid were knocked out of the Champions League this week and rumours immediately started circulating that there would be a change of manager because of the European exit.

Real are a club who have spent a large amount of money on a few lucky and key players. This money brings with it a tremendous amount of pressure and it’s pressure, which means the current boss, Pellegrini, is on borrowed time.

However, Wenger said: “Leave me alone. I am always going to stay to the end of my contract and I am going (to stay at Arsenal) until 2011. There is no way I am going to break it.”

“For me, it is the worst possible moment to come back on that. At the moment my focus is fully on Hull City (on Saturday) they may be less glamorous than Real Madrid, but they are much more important in my life at the moment.”

“It shows that £240million does not necessarily buy you the Champions League and that in Europe you have no guarantee of success. If you can spend that kind of money every year, you will get there in the end, but at the moment it is difficult for them to take.”

“In the last five years we have been in the final, a semi-final and two quarter-finals in England we don’t rate that as an achievement any more because we are used to it, but that consistency is not easy to achieve.”

There were heavy rumours some years back that Wenger would switch to the Spanish club when his contract ran out at Arsenal and now the same story is starting to appear at a similar sort of time.

There is no reason at all to doubt Wenger’s words. He clearly is going to stay at Arsenal for a number of reasons. The rumours will carry on but there is nothing on them and it would take a special deal to get Wenger to say otherwise.

Wenger is Mr. Arsenal. The entire team plays the way he wants them to and he is at a club where he is the top dog and has the final word on pretty much every thing.

If he did go to Real then he would also be contradicting his own transfer policy and emphasis on bringing players up through a youth system in order to get them to play to their potential.

Real would demand that Wenger spend big money on big players in order to get success and this is something that the Frenchman just does not do.

The only job that would probably get him to leave the Gunners would be the French international job and he would not take that offer until he had won another title or Champions League with Arsenal.

Arsene Wenger says he is hoping to draw an English team and get some revenge during the quarter final stage of the Champions League.

His Arsenal side romped to a 5-0 win over Porto last night and showed why they are still the best football side in Europe when they decide to get the ball down and play football.

Niklas Bendtner scored a hat trick as the team did not look as though there were any hang overs from the first leg defeat they suffered on a long and miserable night in the Portuguese city.

Wenger said: “I have a funny feeling that maybe it is good for us to play an English team. We have not done well against Chelsea and not done well against United this year, and it will be a good opportunity to show that we can do it against them.”

“It’s a good opportunity if we get them to show we can do well. If I had a choice I would say yes. If we get them we cannot do worse than we did in the championship, we can only do better.”

“It shows first of all how quickly football changes, but I hope it will not give him too much confidence. I’m happy for him because he had a good game on Saturday but missed chances, and today he had less chances and scored three goals.”

“It’s good for his confidence, but I hope it gives him the desire to work even harder. His confidence level is always stable. He has the size and presence we need. We’re usually a short team, so someone with size is important, offensively and defensively.”

Arsenal are a very difficult side to try and predict when they play in Europe. They are capable of performances like this but they are equally capable of falling short when teams work them out and counter attack their style of play.

Wenger may say that he wants to play an English side but deep down there will probably be a small part of him that hopes to avoid the possibility. For now they will bask in this latest glory.

Bendtner added: “Sometimes it’s one of those days [against Burnley] and today I put it right. I’m happy with my hat-trick, but tomorrow we move on.”

“It will give us a lot of confidence. We want to win the Champions League. It’s something we haven’t done. We scored all our chances today, which is very positive.”

Arsenal are still fighting for glory in the Premier League as well as Europe and there may come a point in the near future where the club have to focus on trying to win just one.

Their squad is not big enough to win both of these competitions and Porto were one of the weaker teams left in the running to lift the Champions League trophy.

Arsenal need to stay grounded after this win because it will be easy to get carried away with the score the way it was.

Its like that old saying, isn’t it – ‘if you wanna make an omelette you gotta break some eggs.’ Unfortunately for Aaron Ramsey, football is the omelette and the broken egg shell is his mangled right leg. The story was all too familiar for Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger, who must be seriously close to serving up that omelette by now!

After Abou Diaby’s ankle was horrifically crunched by Sunderland’s Dan Smith in a Premier League match in 2006, Brazilian-born striker Eduardo went one better in 2008 with a broken left fibula and an open dislocation of his left ankle through Birmingham’s Martin Taylor’s high challenge.

‘Horrendous and unacceptable’ were the words Arsene Wenger used to label the tackle from Stoke defender Ryan Shawcross which fractured Ramsey’s tibia and fibula, leaving the Welshman’s leg dangling at a freak angle.

Continuing the every-two-year trend, last week was the 19-year-old’s turn. It’s an image no one likes to see in sport, particularly when the victim is a teenager with the promise of midfielder Ramsey. The players were visibly disturbed, Ramsey visibly in agony, and God knows what must have been going through Eduardo’s mind as he entered the pitch as a substitute soon after.

However, to name the tackle which inflicted the leg break ‘horrendous and unacceptable’ is way off the mark from Wenger and any notions of post-match frustration shining through on that were quashed when the Frenchman stood by his quotes later in the coming week.

Shawcross was late, but this is football – late tackles happen as often as a mistimed pass or a misplaced shot, it’s just a part of the game which has been cruel to the Gunners in the past few years.

If the tackle was ‘unacceptable’ then what would have been acceptable from Shawcross? To pull out when he realised he wasn’t going to get there and risk the wrath of Tony Pulis in the dressing room after? James Beattie certainly wouldn’t have hung around for that. The tackle was clumsy but ‘horrendous’ it was not.

Wenger’s follow up comments were tentative, though: “I admire a great technical tackle as much as a creative pass,” Wenger told skysports.com. But if he really admires a good tackle as much as a good pass, then surely he can accept that a bad tackle is as inevitable as a bad pass. It’s typical of Wenger to buck the trend with opinion on this issue, but the trend of horrific injuries to his players should now stop through divine right alone.

Tackling hard is always a risk but risks are what make sports great and the day going in hard is absent from football is the day the sport is no longer a man’s game.

Former England player and current legend, Chris Waddle, has said that Theo Walcott does not understand the game enough at international level.

Waddle is speaking ahead of the World Cup this summer and there is still a big chance for someone in the side to step in and make the right and left wing positions their own.

Waddle was an England regular who played in some of the toughest club and country competitions in the world. He will know better than most the qualities needed to read the game at the highest level.

He said: “People keep saying he’s young but Wayne Rooney understood the game at 16, 17. I’ve never seen any difference in Walcott since he was at Southampton and broke into the team at a very young age.”

“I’ve never seen him develop. He just doesn’t understand the game for me – where to be running, when to run inside a full back, when to just play a one-two. It’s all off the cuff. I just don’t think he’s got a football brain and he’s going to have problems. Let’s be honest, good defenders would catch him offside every time. I just don’t know whether he studies the game, learns the game, or what. He’s at a great club where they play fantastic football week-in, week-out, and I’m just surprised he’s never developed his game.”

“I’m surprised Walcott was in the squad. He doesn’t play a lot of football, he hasn’t done anything. he hasn’t done anything for a long time and I think Croatia was a one-off. I just think he’s got a lot to learn. I’ve been more impressed by Adam Johnson at Manchester City than Theo Walcott.”

Waddle’s comments about Johnson at Manchester City will be echoed by many people within the current football community. It is a little strange how a player who was set to join Real Madrid at one point cannot be good enough to play for his own country.

Walcott is a decent player but the point is he still has a lot to prove on the international stage. Johnson needs a chance and he could be a fresher and surprising choice for England’s World Cup squad this summer.

It is a nice problem for Fabio Capello to have and the boss will be hoping that competition for places continues to stay fierce. The one thing he will not want to happen is a spurt of injuries, which threaten to dent the spine of the side.

You cannot be a bad player if you can score an away hat trick in international football. Walcott needs to work hard and remember that he has a top line manager in Arsene Wenger to go to advice for at Arsenal.

It’s difficult to call all of the midfield positions for England’s squad, which will go to South Africa in June. Walcott and Johnson may well end up both going. Watch this space over the coming months.

Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, has had time to reflect on his comments over the weekend and it seems as though he is sticking to them.

Wenger reacted furiously to a challenge from Stoke player, Ryan Shawcross, which left gifted young midfielder, Aaron Ramsey, with a badly broken right leg. Shawcross was shown a straight red card but Wenger believes the problem runs much deeper.

Wenger says he is afraid that many Premier League teams are not able to cope with the talent, pace and movement of his younger players. The only way teams apparently deal with this is to be very physical in all aspects of the game.

Wenger said: “We had today in midfield Nasri, Fàbregas, Ramsey and Eboué. Up front Bendtner is 22 years old. What these guys do, at that age, is absolutely remarkable, but of course if you destroy them, they might not be football players.”

“What is most terrible for me is Ramsey starts his career with a double [break] and you never know what kind of consequences this will have on his physical side of the game and his psychological side. It’s just scandalous.”

“It will be of course tight to the end, but it gives us one more reason to be strong mentally and to be united and to fight until the end and to do it for him.”

Shawcross said after the incident: “There was absolutely no malice in the challenge. I would never, ever go out to hurt a fellow professional. I am deeply upset that Aaron has suffered such a bad injury and my thoughts are with him. I would like to send him my best wishes for a speedy recovery.”

The break on Ramsey’s leg was so bad that TV producers banned controllers from showing replays of the tackle during live play. It also prompted a number of Arsenal players to physically turn away from their teammate who was in obvious stress and pain.

Arsenal’s captain, Cesc Fabregas, said that the number of career threatening injuries he has witnessed during his time at Arsenal is far too high and also says that it cannot be just coincidence that Arsenal players are the ones getting hurt on a regular basis.

Ramsey is only very young so he should not be worried about the prospect of never being able to play the game again. His injury will heal a lot quicker than were he of an older age.

Arsenal have hinted that they may try and get Shawcross’ ban extended for the severity of the tackle and the incident but it would prove fruitless. The injury has taken place now and all that Ramsey can do is listen to the best medical advice and be sensible with his rehabilitation over the coming days and months.

Thoughts are with him and surely everyone in the football community wishes him a speedy recovery. It would be a shame if something like this ended the career of someone so talented.