Gunners turn fire on referee after Barça loss

Barcelona made another great stride toward achieving a second treble under Pep Guardiola at Camp Nou on Tuesday night, defeating Arsenal 3-1 to overturn a one-goal deficit from the first leg of the Champions League between the two. Seven points clear at the top of La Liga, Barça will line up against second-place rival Real Madrid in April as it seeks a second King's Cup title under the current coach.

Tuesday's match will be remembered in time for two pieces of skill that led to both of Barça's goals from open play; Leo Messi's deft chip over Manuel Almunia to set himself up for the opening strike, and David Villa's subtle touch for Xavi to fire home the second. In the immediate aftermath of the match, Arsenal can feel rightly aggrieved by the result.

Wenger: "The sending-off cost us the game"

The Gunners' Polish goalkeeper, Wojciech Szczesny, sustained a dislocated finger early in the first half but Arsenal's post-match wrath was leveled at referee Massimo Busacca, who unbalanced the playing field at Camp Nou by dismissing Robin van Persie for a second bookable offense. No more than a second elapsed between the Dutch striker being called offside and lashing the ball goalward but Busacca deemed the offense sufficient to reach for his notebook.

At any level of the sport it would have been an extremely harsh decision. As Van Persie pointed out in animated fashion to Busacca, with a crowd of more than 95,000 in full voice he could hardly be expected to hear a pocket whistle. At 1-1 and with a full team on the field, Arsenal was still in the driving seat in the tie. With 10 players against the best attacking side in world soccer, there was a grim inevitability that the score would not remain static for long.

"The sending-off cost us the game," fumed an incandescent Arsène Wenger. "I think two kinds of people can be unhappy: those who love Arsenal and those who love football, because it's very difficult to understand his attitude." Wenger made his discontent plain to Busacca at the final whistle and will now face a Uefa probe for doing so.

Guardiola said he felt sympathy for Arsenal - although he displayed little affection for his French counterpart when the match ended. "I understand why Wenger said what he said - if it happened to me, I'd probably think the same. But if we are talking about soccer, the truth is they didn't manage three consecutive passes. We had 70-percent possession and they didn't have one shot on goal." In fact, Barça had closer to 75 percent of the ball and 19 shots to Arsenal's zero. The Gunners' goal was scored by makeshift Barça center-back Sergio Busquets.

Arsenal will seethe in futility for some time but it is Barça that will be drawn in the last eight - possibly against Real Madrid.