Thierry Henry is a super player and generally a fine fellow, but I suspect his remarks last night were the result of frustration at himself and others.
Lehman committed a deliberate red-card offence; as a player, if you feel you must bring your opponent down, you always have the option of reaching him
through the ball (that's often enough to placate the ref somewhat), but Lehman went straight for the man. Off.
All this nonsense about the ref denying Arsenal a fair game is laughable - the suggestion that red card offences should be allowed if committed early enough!!!!
I don't think so.
I admit to being much more a cricket chap than a football man, but I must say that as far as I'm aware, the ref would have been within his rights to let that goal stand
and send Lehman off - that would have been the right thing to do in my opinion.
The main reason Arsenal lost is the reason that has cost English clubs more European games than any other: defending whilst one-nil up. It's the deadly trap that they all fall for (Liverpool vs Brondby is one of many examples). Arsenal effectively just gave Barca 45 minutes to score - with a team as talented as that, there's an inevitable outcome. And of course, once they score one, the impetus is with them. We couldn't believe Arsenal resting on their laurels like that - ten men or not, they were playing very well and could have had the game. Their two second-half chances were fluffed too, of course.
Yet agaion, we gave ITV's commemtary a chance, but in the end (yet again) it turned out to be partisan, moronic and xenophobic (how
do they get away with it?). We turned the volume down and put Radio 5's commentary on.