What do we really know about Marseille?
Just that they beat Dortmund 3-0.
That result rocked me a little bit.
Loic Remy and Andre Ayeu are fast forwards and Didier Deschamps, the Napoleon of France\’s midfield in 1998, is a good organiser.
It\’s an interesting and long-awaited game : France\’s biggest football club visit the biggest club in France.
Arsenal have never played Marseille under Wenger, so it\’s a heavy night for both clubs.
Amazingly, Marseille have won only one of their first 10 league games, so they don\’t have the form that got them into the Champions League. But I think that\’s because the players are distracted by the six games against Borussia Dortmund, Olympiakos and Arsenal. They\’d love to reach the group stage.
If they beat Arsenal tonight, Marseilles will have nine points.
Gibbs is out, so Santos will play left back. The game is on ITV tonight, so a wider spectrum of football fans will be able to see how good or bad Arsenal are right now. What can Gervinho, Arteta and Walcott do in a game like this? How muscular and fast will Marseille be?
On what we’ve seen this season, all Champions League games are hard for everybody, even for the big clubs. Especially away from home.
In Bucharest, the Otelul Gulati-Man United game provided two penalties and a red card. Rooney scored both penalties and Vidic, back after a long injury, went for a big tackle near the touchline as Gabriel Giugiu broke away on the right.
Vidic was rusty and a yard short. He got there as soon as he could but his opponent got there first. A whole-hearted defender like Vidic has to go for a ball like that. If he holds back, the guy is past him anyway. He went for an all-or-nothing tackle and the Romanian was quicker and the Serb had to go.
The game he misses is Otelul at Old Trafford, so his suspension is no big deal. Vidic knew it was a red card tackle if he missed the ball.
Manchester City beat Villarreal with an extremely late goal by Aguero.
City started badly, with David Silva made a sloppy pass that didn\’t find Nigel De Jong, who tried to be clever and nick the ball past De Guzman, who robbed him and supplied Rossi, whose left foot strike was spilled by Joe Hart to Cani, who slotted under the keeper\’s body.
Man City 0 Villarreal 1.
A hammer blow for City, who were looking for their first win on Matchday 3.
That goal was a stunner.
To concede THAT goal in 4 minutes was bad news for any team in any game.
I thought Villarreal\’s shape and intelligence were exemplary and they hardly wasted a ball as the yellows waited to launch a counter-attack that would finish the sky blues.
It was an interesting contest for a neutral to watch and City, unable to cut through the middle, badly need a killer ball from the flanks. When one came at last, from Kolarov, Marchena own-goaled it.
Deep into stoppage time, ten seconds left, good play by Milner to find Zabaleta on the right, David Silva cleverly flicked on with is right instep, Zola-style, and Aguero stabbed in from one yard at the back stick, triggering wild, clumsy, unrehearsed celebrations from Mancini and Platt, his assistant.
A very dramatic end to a crucial match.
Can\’t blame Roberto Mancini for going ballistic because it was a gigantic moment for him.
Lovely, sensible interview by skipper Vincent Kompany, a terrific player and a good bloke. He said : Ours is by far the toughest group, Napoli and Bayern are good teams.
For me, Manchester City are at the bottom of a learning curve and on the evidence of their first three game they\’re not going to go the distance in the Champions League first time out.
Their next two games are away to Villarreal and Napoli.
De Sanctis saved a Mario Gomez penalty for Napoli in a 1-1 draw at home to Bayern Munich. Last week De Sanctis came on for the last 10 minutes against Northern Ireland, replacing Gigi Buffon. He hadn\’t played for Italy for three years. Here he had no chance with Bayern’s goal, a beautiful run and finish by midfielder Tony Kroos.
During Arsenal’s first 10 season in the Champions league I always used to think : You need a goal, you always need a goal.
On frustrating nights, you always seem to be just one goal short. Arsenal had many spectacular nights but also some when they were always a goal short and just couldn\’t score one. That kind of frustration eats into you. It\’s not erased by great victories, like beating Juventus 3-1 in a high-quality thriller, a helluva game.
It helps when you\’ve got Dennis to make the goals and Freddie to score them. Did Wenger really play Dennis wide right against Lazio? That was radical move but it worked. Did I remember that right? It was a long time ago.
I thought of doing a treble last night: United/City/Real Madrid.
But I bottled it, thinking United might draw in Romania and Villarreal might contain Man City. So I just backed Madrid at rubbish odds and they beat Lyon 4-0.