- Real Valladolid 1 Barcelona 2
- Arsenal 1 Bournemouth 2
Brazil star forward Raphinha came to the party on Saturday night showing how goal scoring is done with class as title chasing Barcelona beat hosts, Real Valladolid 1-2 in their La Liga game.
Expectedly, Raphinha made immediate impact off the bench as Coach Hansi Flick’s men avoided an embarrassing slip up in the La Liga title race
The match saw a heavily rotated Barcelona team overcoming a frustrating first half to secure three vital points in the Spanish title race.
Sandwiched between the two legs of their Champions League semi-final against Inter Milan, the league leaders might have taken to the pitch in Valladolid on Saturday, expecting an easy ride against La Liga’s bottom club, already relegated ahead of kick-off.
However, the squad rotation almost proved costly as it took the pressure off Valladolid, who went ahead inside just six minutes through Ivan Sanchez.
Shaking off a clearly frustrating first half performance, things changed when Hansi Flick introduced Raphinha and Frenkie de Jong at break.
Interestingly, Raphinha’s 31st goal of the season soon levelled things up when a stray punch from goalkeeper Andre Ferreira fell at the Brazilian’s feet.
Fermin Lopez then put the Catalans 2-1 up an hour in, taking up a position at the edge of the box for Gerard Martin’s cutback.
As proceedings wore on, Hector Fort hit the post and Lamine Yamal, a first half injury replacement, had an effort cleared off the line towards the end.
Also, Marc-Andre ter Stegen needed to be sharp on his long-awaited return to keep out a would-be Valladolid equaliser with a fine save. The Barca goalkeeper and Captain is back in the team after months out injured but was beaten far too easily in the opening exchanges
For now, their lead on the La Liga League table has at least temporarily grown to seven points on Real Madrid, who host Celta Vigo in their weekend game later today, Sunday.
Mikel Arteta Tasks Arsenal On ‘Anger, Frustration And Rage’
After seeing his team fall like a pack of cards for the second time in five days, Mikel Arteta has challenged Arsenal players to use the ‘anger, frustration and rage’ from Bournemouth collapse to spark a comeback win against PSG in the second leg Champions League semi-final match in Paris come Wednesday next week.
Following their frustrating 1-2 loss to Bournemouth at the Emirates Stadium, Arteta is demanding a reaction from his Gunners when they face Paris Saint-Germain.
He admitted Saturday’s defeat was exactly the opposite of what Arsenal had wanted in preparation for facing the French side in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final second leg.
The Gunners must now take the taste of defeat into a game they have to win to have any chance of prevailing – they need a two-goal margin in Paris to prevail over 90 minutes, without extra-time.
With the Premier League title race over and Arsenal highly unlikely to tumble all the way out of the top five, the Champions League is understandably more of a priority, especially as the Gunners have never won it.
But a big boost going into the second leg would have been momentum from a positive result against Bournmeouth, which they didn’t achieve. It means Arteta has to look for other ways to motivate his team.
On whether Arsenal have lost momentum before facing PSG, Arteta told Premier League Productions: “It didn’t create the right momentum. It created a lot of anger, frustration, rage, disappointment. Let’s use all of that on Wednesday. That’s what we have to do.”
He added in his post-match press conference: “We certainly wanted to create a really good vibe, a positive result would really help us to build what we wanted towards Wednesday.
“So what we have created now is a lot of rage, anger, frustration and a bad feeling in the tummy. So make sure that we use that for Wednesday to have a massive performance in Paris, win the game and be in the final.”
For now, Wednesday night in Paris has the potential to define not just Arsenal’s season but their history. Every other major Premier League club has won the Champions League at least once, with the Gunners coming agonisingly close in 2006 but never again since.
If this season ends trophyless, it could also even see cracks in the Arteta era start to form. – With Goal.com report.
