Arsenal to meet holders Barca in Champions League

Arsenal drew Barcelona in the Champions League Last 16 on Monday morning, and Twitter was quick to stick the knife into the Gunners’ chances of reaching the quarter-finals.

In the 2006 final, the Catalan club won 2-1 thanks to a late Juliano Belletti goal, and in 2010 Arsenal lost 6-3 on aggregate in the quarterfinals.

Paris Saint-Germain coach Laurent Blanc insists his team are not overwhelming favourites to dump struggling Chelsea out of the Champions League.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Alan Smith has predicted Barcelona to beat Arsenal in the Champions League last sixteen.

Barcelona is the team that Arsenal have to face and earlier they only had to deal with a certain Messi but this time around with the likes of Luis Suarez and Neymar banging in the goals, it certainly won’t be an easy task for the Premier League team.

“We’ve got world class players and it will be two fantastic games that we are looking forward to”, he added.

“It is an attractive tie, Arsenal are a good team with magnificent players and they play really good football”.

The two clubs have met each other in both of the past two seasons, with Chelsea coming out on top in the 2013-14 quarter final and PSG sneaking through, somewhat shockingly, last spring after extra time. Last year PSG eliminated Chelsea at the same stage of the competition and the year before went on eliminating the French in the Quaterfinals.

Still, there was one fresh look in the eight pairings as the two newcomers to the knockout rounds were drawn together: Gent will host Wolfsburg first in Belgium.

Last month UEFA ordered Kiev to play their next three European home games behind closed doors as punishment for racist behaviour by fans during their group game against Chelsea in October. First legs to be played February 16/17 and 23/24. Return legs are on 8-9 and 15-16 March. “We lacked in those departments last season, so we want to avoid repeating those mistakes”. Arsenal are not favorites here, but we don’t consider ourselves outright favorites.

Manchester United was paired with Danish team Midtjylland which takes part in the competition for the first time.

“There is a great danger when you go to a draw – Dynamo Kiev they have been in a very tough group phase with Porto and Chelsea”.

They have shown they can beat the biggest sides in Europe this season, with their impressive performance against Bayern Munich at the Emirates demonstrating as much.