Per Mertesacker to blame for Barcelona penalty vs Arsenal over Mathieu Flamini, Standard Sport readers vote
Per Mertesacker was to blame for Barcelona's penalty rather than Mathieu Flamini in Arsenal's Champions League defeat on Tuesday, according to Standard Sport readers.
The Gunners have it all to do after collapsing to a 2-0 home defeat in the first leg of their last-16 Champions League tie with Barca.
After shackling the visitors' menacing front three of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar for over 70 minutes, the Gunners were hit as Barca launched a devastating counter-attack which Messi finished.
A blow to Arsenal's hopes of progression, but not the nail in the coffin.
That seemingly came 10 minutes later, moments after Flamini was introduced for Francis Coquelin.
Again Messi was at the heart of it. The Ballon d'Or holder sent an aimless lofted pass into the feet of Mertesacker on the penalty spot, but the German failed to deal with it, instead miscontrolling the ball back into Messi's path.
Spying danger, Flamini lunged, upending Barcelona's talisman and Turkish referee Cuneyt Cakir pointed straight to the spot.
Messi picked himself up to hand Barcelona a 2-0 advantage from the 12 yards and seemingly end the tie.
But despite Flamini's quick-fire failure after coming on, it is Mertesacker who has been deemed truly at fault for the spot-kick by 52 per cent of 458 Standard Sport readers who voted in Wednesday's Poll of the Day.
A small margin, admittedly, but then Barcelona proved it doesn't take much to make the difference between success and failure at this level.