Magical Messi makes light work of Arsenal

Barcelona 4-1 Arsenal
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It required a performance of absolute brilliance and four wonderful goals from Lionel Messi but FC Barcelona underlined their status as European champions by sweeping past Arsenal FC to advance to a semi-final against FC Internazionale Milano.

Even after falling behind to Nicklas Bendtner's early goal on the counterattack, Barça built on last week's impressive display in north London as Messi contributed a sumptuous 22-minute hat-trick and added a fourth two minutes from time. The 6-3 aggregate scoreline took the UEFA Champions League titleholders into the semi-finals for the third year in a row and will also give food for though to José Mourinho, whose Inter side now face the task of stopping the Barça juggernaut in the last four.

The visitors had started full of self-belief and intensity of purpose, unfazed by Barça's attacking arsenal. Abou Diaby combined telescopic tackling with lung-busting runs, and that earned his team their 18th-minute breakthrough. The Arsenal midfielder robbed Gabriel Milito on the halfway line, Theo Walcott sprinted down the right and passed towards Bendtner. Daniel Alves arrived in time to block and Victor Valdés pawed away the loose ball, but the Dane was up quickest to prod in.

By then it had already taken a fine fingertip save from Almunia to turn away a Messi drive. It was obvious the inspirational Argentinian wanted to appear in a third successive semi-final, and he duly took matters into his own hands. Three minutes after Bendtner's strike, Messi's attempted pass bounced back off Mickäel Silvestre so he simply crashed a left-footed drive high past Manuel Almunia from outside the box.

After the power came the finesse as the European champions started to find their passing rhythm. Eight minutes before the break that culminated in Messi sending Eric Abidal through and, though Thomas Vermaelen got a foot to the left-back's low cross, Pedro Rodríguez tapped the loose ball to Messi. One touch to take him free of a challenge and the next to dink over Almunia and Barcelona were in control.

Two become three when Arsenal were caught pushing up. Seydou Keita headed a loose ball into the path of Messi and the No10 was bearing down on Almunia again. Once more the Spanish goalkeeper was reduced to the role of helpless spectator as the 22-year-old deftly scooped the ball up and over his dive to complete his hat-trick in style.

Although Messi's play was sublime Arsenal continued to push Barcelona close to their limit, Diaby and Denilson striving to contain Xavi Hernàndez. Josep Guardiola's side lost Abidal, in his second comeback match after seven weeks out injured, Maxwell coming on, and the home coach added a tactical change with Bojan Krkić being replaced by Yaya Touré.

Arsenal would not concede defeat and although both were offside, Bendtner and Walcott hit the woodwork with efforts which showed the spirit in Arsène Wenger's team. It was their misfortune to come up against a team at their imperious best, and Messi underlined that with one last flourish in the 88th minute, rounding Vermaelen and Gaël Clichy before clipping past Almunia at the second attempt – only the sixth time a player has scored four goals in a UEFA Champions League match.

Arsenal thrashes Porto ( Arsenal 5-0 Porto [ agg 6-2] )

Arsenal FC manager Arsène Wenger played down talk of perfection but nevertheless reflected on "a very good performance" as Nicklas Bendtner scored a hat-trick in a 5-0 defeat of FC Porto which spectacularly overturned a 2-1 first-leg deficit. The Frenchman is already looking ahead to the 19 March draw for the quarter-finals, and a potential meeting with another English club; opposite number Jesualdo Ferreira could only look back and pinpoint Arsenal's ruthlessness as the source of his team's demise.

Arsène Wenger, Arsenal manager
It's never perfect but that was a very good performance, very strong. We had a very good first half. They played well for ten to 15 minutes at the start of the second, but after Nasri scored the third goal that made a big difference; from then on it was easy. Nasri's goal was individual brilliance but overall it was a good, solid team performance.

The hat-trick shows how quickly football changes. [Bendtner] played well on Saturday without scoring and had less chances today and scored three goals. I hope it will give him the desire to work even harder. I don't know [about the quarter-finals] but have a funny feeling that it would be good for us to play an English team. We haven't done well against Chelsea and Man United this year and it would be a good opportunity to put that right.

Jesualdo Ferreira, Porto coach
We started well but Arsenal capitalised on our mistakes. The result looks harsh given how the game developed; they took advantage of almost all their chances and we didn't take advantage of ours. We had to do what we could because at this stage it's about goals and not points. We had to attack to try to score but this made it easy for them to take advantage as they're a very talented and mature squad.

We could have closed down the spaces and defended better but we had to play our game and push. We made mistakes which were unusual for this team but we were never lucky at crucial moments and they didn't make the same mistakes we did.

Arsenal lose Ramsey to broken leg

Arsenal FC have confirmed that midfielder Aaron Ramsey will miss the remainder of this season after sustaining "fractures to the tibia and fibula in his right leg" in Saturday's win at Stoke City FC.
UEFA Champions League hopefuls Arsenal FC will be denied the services of Aaron Ramsey for the rest of the season after the midfielder suffered a broken leg in his team's 3-1 win at Stoke City FC on Saturday.

Ramsey, 19, was taken to hospital immediately after leaving the field on a stretcher in the 71st minute following a challenge by Ryan Shawcross. "During yesterday's match against Stoke City, Aaron Ramsey sustained fractures to the tibia and fibula in his right leg," read an official statement by Arsenal. "Yesterday evening he underwent surgery. The operation successfully reduced the fractures and whilst it is too soon to state an exact timescale for recovery, Aaron will certainly miss the remainder of this season."

The victory took the Gunners within three points of Chelsea FC at the Premier League summit and they will look to overturn a 2-1 deficit when they host FC Porto in their UEFA Champions League first knockout round decider on 9 March.

Porto 2-1 Arsenal

Łukasz Fabiański deflected in Silvestre Varela's early cross-shot but Sol Campbell equalised seven minutes later only for the quick-thinking Falcao to strike the winner.
Fabiański picked up a Campbell back pass and Rúben Micael's quick free-kick in the box set Falcao free to score the winner before Arsenal had been able to regroup.
Campbell made his 200th appearance for Arsenal and headed a goal just like in his previous UEFA Champions League match, another 2-1 defeat in the 2006 final.
Campbell had been keeping the in-form Falcao quiet ever since an early saving tackle but the striker showed his predatory instinct in the move that decided the game.
Given close attention on the edge of the area, Hulk eliminated his marker with a deft chip and produced a vicious volley that Fabiański had to dive low to keep out.
Porto go to London on 9 March with the advantage but will be well aware that their two trips to Arsenal since 2006, both in the group stage, resulted in 2-0 and 4-0 defeats.