Barca fans fairly confident despite Puyol dependency (News Feature)

By Duncan Shaw Feb 17, 2011, 10:59 GMT

Madrid - The fans of Spanish champions Barcelona are fairly confident their team will eliminate Arsenal in the round of 16 of the Champions League, to judge by online polls on Thursday.

However, they are clearly worried by their team's sudden drop in form, by the evaporation of Lionel Messi's goal touch - and by an apparent dependency on veteran captain Carles Puyol.

On Wednesday Barca threw away a 1-0 lead to lose 2-1 away to Arsenal, with Messi missing clear chances and with the defence struggling without Puyol.

An online poll taken by Madrid paper Marca showed, on Thursday, that 66.7 per cent of readers believe Barca are capable of turning the tie around in the home leg on March 8. A similar poll taken by Mundo Deportivo - which is mostly read by Barca fans - showed 52 per cent optimistic about the tie.

Mundo Deportivo on Thursday explained the defeat by referring to 'six fatal minutes', when Robin Van Persie and Andrei Arshavin scored Arsenal's late goals.

Barca's 1980s winger Francisco Carrasco, writing in Mundo Deportivo, decried the chances missed by Messi and praised Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger for making 'valiant substitutions.'

Carrasco's conclusion was 'the team has to defend with more intensity and further up the field, because this Arsenal team has no fear at all...The team that defends better in the second leg will go through.'

Mundo Deportivo quoted Barcelona Coach Josep Guardiola as saying: 'Permit me to have faith in these players, who have proved themselves so many times already...I don't see any reason not to be optimistic.'

Rival Catalan daily Sport, for its part, bemoaned the fact that defender Gerard Pique will be suspended for the second leg, but assured its readers that Puyol will by then be fit to stand in for the youngster.

Marca pointed out that The 'common denominator' in Barca's four defeats this season - against Arsenal, Hercules in La Liga, Betis in the King's Cup and Sevilla in the Supercup - has been the absence of Puyol, who at the moment is suffering from tendinitis in his left knee.

Catalan paper La Vanguardia, meanwhile, commented that the 'Pep Team' usually suffers a drop of form in February, and expressed its hope that Messi - who sunk Arsenal in last season's quarter-finals with four goals - will recover his goal touch for the second leg.

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