There is reaction aplenty to the Champions League and Europa League quarter-final draws in the press this morning, with an obvious focus on what seems to be the biggest tie of the round in Europe's premiere club competition, reigning champions Barcelona v Arsenal, in a repeat of the 2006 final in Paris.

Oliver Kay at the Times is especially intrigued by the tie as Arsene Wenger aims to pit his wits against the most attractive football team in the world. The Arsenal model is one that tries to follow the free-flowing football of Barcelona, but while the Gunners' football is attractive they have struggled thus far to emulate the incredible title success of Barca.

"“I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art. Football is like that. When I watch Barcelona, it is art” — Arsène Wenger, August 2009

It was Barcelona’s brilliance last season, as they passed and dribbled their way towards one trophy after another, that sustained and strengthened Wenger’s vision of how football can — and should — be played.

When it was put to him last summer that a team cannot hope to triumph through art alone, the Arsenal manager responded simply by asking: “Which club won everything last season? And do they play good football?”

Barcelona are everything to which Wenger aspires: artistic, creative, free-scoring, richly entertaining, largely home-grown and — here is the crucial part — richly successful. When they run out at the Emirates Stadium on March 31 for the first leg of a mouthwatering Champions League quarter-final tie, they will do as champions of Spain, champions of Europe, champions of the world — a daunting prospect for Arsenal, whose last trophy came in 2005."

Elsewhere, in his typically irreverent style, comedian Dara O Briain, in the Guardian, takes a look back at Inter Milan's Champions League victory over Chelsea, and finds himself somewhat surprisingly feeling pangs of sympathy for Didier Drogba, whose European season ended in disgrace for the third consecutive year.

"I had a night off last Tuesday, a rarity in the midst of a stand-up tour, and was thus able, for the first time in a couple of months, to watch a match live and complete. And I did not expect the evening to cue up so many strange emotions.

Sympathy for Didier Drogba was probably the most surprising. No amount of rolling the tape forward and back on Sky seemed to make it any more conclusive that he had deliberately stamped on Thiago Motta's foot, rather than accidentally. He may well have, but the fact that only seconds previously he had been fondled to the ground yet again made me have some novel fellow‑feeling for the Ivorian.

Time after time, Inter's Lúcio and Walter Samuel had deftly groped Didier across the penalty area and on to the ground. At corners some of the snuggling and heavy petting was verging on the ridiculous, and it was increasingly obvious that we were going to get an eruption from the Chelsea forward as, every time he looked to the referee for justice, all he got was: "You two! Get a room!"

Although clearly an infringement, that sort of carry-on just doesn't seem to register with referees. I honestly can't remember a penalty being given for that manner of intense fondling since the Ireland-Spain World Cup knockout match in 2002, where two spot-kicks were given to us in the last few minutes as recompense for being repeatedly felt up in the penalty area."