Barcelona’s Lionel Messi broke free from Arsenal’s shackles to score two late goals and put the Champions League holders on the brink of the quarter-finals with a clinical 2-0 victory at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday.
The irrepressible Argentine, along with strike partners Luis Suarez and Neymar, had been subdued for most of the last 16, first-leg tie but came alive late on, clinically finishing off a lightning counter-attack and then dispatching a penalty.
“They are 95 per cent through to the quarter-finals certainly,” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, whose side had defended solidly for 71 minutes until crumbling, told reporters.
“It’s a shame we didn’t get any satisfaction because we put everything into it.” Luis Enrique’s Barca side extended their unbeaten run to 33 matches and, barring something extraordinary in the return at the Nou Camp next month, will take their place in the last eight for the ninth season in a row.
“I liked everything we did tonight,” the Spaniard told reporters.
Messi has proved a thorn in Arsenal’s side on each of the last two occasions the teams have met in the Champions League.
In 2010 he scored four times in the last 16 second leg to send Barca through and a year later he struck twice in a 3-1 win in Spain after Arsenal had edged the first leg.
