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Arsenal fan and Olympian Kelly Sotherton did not smash up her television following last night’s defeat against Barcelona, though she may have felt like it.
The Gunners’ initial show of resistance was broken by Lionel Messi’s brace, which gave the La Liga leaders a commanding 2-0 lead to take to the Nou Camp in the second leg.
After keeping relatively quitter for the first 71 minutes, Barcelona’s ‘MSN’ triumvirate of Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar sprung into life, with the Argentinian finishing off a rapid counter-attacking move.
Arsene Wenger brought on Mathieu Flamini, in the hope that the defensive-minded midfielder would help shore up the defence and prevent his side from conceding again. It had the opposite effect.
Per Mertesacker’s poor and under-hit clearance fell some way short of Flamini, who was stretched out a boot and brought down an on-rushing Messi in the area. The world’s greatest player dispatched the resultant spot-kick and sent Sotherton into a spin.
Arsenal 0 Barcelona 2 player ratings
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“Just smashed up the TV”, she joked on Twitter, only for many of the social media network’s users to take her literally.
Her tweet was soon followed up by one from a friend’s account with an image of a smashed television set, remote embedded in the middle of the screen.
While some took this as confirmation, Sotherton has returned to Twitter today and debunked the stories.
“When your mate makes a joke on Twitter and everyone jumps on it like its true #dontbelieveeverythingyouread”, she posted.
The second leg of the Champions League round-of-16 tie will take place at the Nou Camp on 16 March.
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