Referee killed a fantastic match: Wenger

Two kinds of people can be unhappy after the Barcelona game; those who love Arsenal and those who love football can be frustrated with the referee's decisions. When he made the decision to send off van Persie it was a very promising game, very interesting. That's the regret. We lost against a very good Barcelona side, congratulations to them and good luck for the future.

We have many regrets because we didn't expect to lose the game like that. If you have played football at a certain level, you cannot understand the decision. I cannot imagine that someone who has played football, in a game of that importance, makes that decision at the moment he did.

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Even if he heard the whistle, I still don't understand the decision. People who have played football will never accept a decision like that. It killed a promising, fantastic football match. What for? If it's a bad tackle and a second-bookable offence then OK.

I felt Barcelona gave a lot in the first half where we were completely dominated, but in the second half, you felt there was more space and, I knew, like in the first game, we would come back into the game. I am convinced we would have won this game with eleven players.

Once we were down to ten men it was very difficult. I feel Barcelona are good enough to win in a normal way against anybody. You want to be given a chance to play a normal football match. Everybody has the same regret in our dressing room. How big is the blow? We don’t know. That depends on our response on Saturday at Manchester United in the FA Cup.

Although we did not win on Saturday I was happy with the performance. I feel defensively we were very good, we gave a lot physically but we lacked a bit of creativity and sharpness in the final third so we didn't manage to score.

We had two decisions go against us as well and they punished us severely, especially the offside that was given against Andrey Arshavin near the end. To win 1-0 on Saturday would have been important and the only thing I can say is that Andrey was not offside. The same player could have had a penalty earlier in the second half and I think he did the right thing to try and stay on his feet. But it was clear that Titus Bramble was beaten when he came back at Andrey.

More on Champions League

Following their mid-week defeat at Chelsea, Manchester United dropped three more points in losing 3-1 at Liverpool. This sees the gap between Manchester United and Arsenal cut to three points with Arsenal having a game in hand.

Chelsea also has a game in hand over United, and their 3-1 win at Blackpool sees them nine points behind. Manchester City remains third following a 1-0 win at home to Wigan. At the other end of the table just three points now separates Aston Villa in thirteenth place from Birmingham City in eighteenth.

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