What else can I say about Arsenal?
Only that they were younger and fitter than Roma and kept their nerve and qualified luckily.
Wenger gambled on 4-4-2, Bendtner & RVP. It didn’t work.
Who thinks Arsenal will go further?
How many ANR readers think they will reach the final?
Before the game, Wenger called on his team to prove their critics wrong. They didn’t.
If losing 1-0 in Rome was a defining moment, I hope I don’t see another defining moment any time soon.
At times like this I remember March 2002 all too vividly, when Arsenal were 2-0 down at home to Deportivo La Coruna, those giants of world football. Like anybody else, I say things in the heat of the moment during games, expressing frustration. At half-time I turned to my longtime buddy Stewart Joseph and said, “You’ll never win the Champions with Thierry Henry as your main striker. And you’ll never win the Champions League with this manager.”
But I believed that then and still believe it. Wenger hasn’t proved me wrong yet.
He’s built a stadium and 650 flats but he has not built a team that can win trophies in the new stadium. That was always gonna be a stretch, to put it mildly.
A few words about crowds, absent friends and Tuesday’s games being more exciting than Wednesday’s.
Barcelona drew 93,000 and thrashed Lyon 5-2.
Roma drew 81,000 and lost on penalties.
Manchester United got 74,000.
Bayern Munich got 66,000 and their 7-1 win over Sporting was sadism, since they had won 5-0 in Lisbon in the first leg.
Liverpool got 42,000.
Porto got 49,000 and a 0-0 against Atletico Madrid was enough.
Do you know what the Juventus crowd was?
The Old Lady, Italy’s best loved football club, got 28,500. Because Juve are sharing with Torino for two years while their own stadium is rebuilt. 28,500 is the capacity, I’m told.
Manchester United beat Inter Milan with two fantastic headers in 4 and 49 minutes but there was a lot of tension in between those goals. United didn’t dominate in the 45 minutes between the goals, so it was on a knife-edge.
Giggs’s corner kick was superb, Vidic lost Vieira cleverly, headed in forcefully.
Sheer genius by Rooney to set up the killer goal after a good move. Giggs to Scholes to Rooney to Cristiano Ronaldo. Rooney, on the left facing Maicon, inched into the box, jabbed his sidefoot cross. Swift, flat, hanging six yards out, that ball gave Ronaldo time to get there. Julio Cesar didn’t come till too late, bingo, 2-0, Ronaldo slid 15 yards on his knees to the corner flag and froze for the lenses, awaiting Rooney’s rough kiss. Game over, really.
Inter gave United three chances and Vidic and Ronaldo scored. O’Shea missed his one-on-one with Cesar.
United gave Inter five chances, two good ones, three half-chances.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic was a paper tiger again. In 29, he mistimed a header from six yards.Played in by Balotelli in a similar position to where Iaquinta buried his shot across Cech, Ibra fired wide.
A stat from the still-immaculate Martin Tyler : Ibrahimovic is 27 and has nine games against English clubs, no goals, no wins.
In passing, Mourinho’s decision to leave out the lumbering Adriano was the right one.
The Man United-Inter game lacked the passion, tempo and momentum of the Liverpool and Chelsea thrillers on Tuesday night. It was a spread-out tactical contest between two cagey teams and Old Trafford saw a completely different ball-game to Anfield, with Rooney making some good tackles on raiding right back Maicon.
Still, Inter were better than Roma and would have beaten Arsenal.
For me, Wednesday was a night of absent friends : no Fabregas, no Mexes, no Tevez.
Four English clubs in the last eight again? Money talks.
Bottom Line : Manchester United are world champions and Van der Sar has not conceded a goal at Old Trafford since November 1.
On Tuesday night, Rafa’s Liverpool pulverised Real Madrid with Torres and Stevie G playing out of their skins. They annihilated a Madrid defence which is deeply flawed. Torres and Gerrard looked far superior to anybody in the Arsenal or Chelsea teams. They play together, they combine, they terrorise, they complement each other, they excite, they score goals, they remind us what its all about. I watch the Champions League to see exciting gladiators win big games by scoring bold goals. Stevie G and Fernando T sharpen my anticipation.
When Juande Ramos managed Spurs he couldn’t handle Premier League opposition and now, coaching Real Madrid, he could not handle Liverpool, who beat him home and away. The great Real Madrid have never lost 5-0 on aggregate to anybody since this competition started 54 years ago
Didier Drogba is a centre forward who needs the whole of the penalty area to himself, so he can run where he wants and when he wants, as Lineker used to do.
He needs space, so he should not play with a partner, other than Frank Lampard, who makes runs beyond Drogba or to join him. Drogba passes to Lampard because Frank is not competing for his place in the team.
Drogba sees himself as an action-hero who scores spectacular goals that are shown again and again on TV. Drogba is interested in heroics and a partner has no role in his scenario unless he can arrive late but just in time to shoot when Drogba is deciding he can’t. Those runs are Lampard’s game, his value to the team, his value to Drogba. Chelsea, for now, has to be organised round what Drogba and Lampard want to do together.
Most notable thing about the Juventus-Chelsea first half was that both Michaels started badly. Ballack’s legs have gone since his injury and he can’t disguise that any longer. His wild shot in 13 minutes signalled how desperate he is to make a mark. When you see something as selfishly stupid as that from a veteran you think : Play for the team, stop playing for Michael Ballack !
Michael Essien was half a yard off the pace and his clumsiness contributed to the collision between Nedved’s head and Essien’s knee.
Nedved is 36 and too slow to play wide against Ashley Cole or Bosingwa, so he was central and trying to make runs from the centre circle against two African tanks, Mikel and Essien. To have the slightest chance of doing that he needed to be Bryan Robson in his prime. No winger, even Ryan Giggs, could survive making runs from the centre circle against those two bruisers.
Hiddink’s formation was too narrow in the first half but he changed it in the second to get more possession in wide areas.
Crazy handball by Belletti to block Del Piero’s free-kick and give him a free shot from the penalty spot, which ADP rolled in, foxing Cech.
Chelsea hadn’t won any of their last six CL away games before this 2-2 draw.
On Chelsea, two conclusions. One, they deserved to go through. Two, it needs a revamp, Roman.
Anelka and Ballack add nothing to the team. Like Shevchenko, they are galacticos. Anelka always takes the lazy option, never takes responsibility, preferring to win a foul or tug a defender or do something annoying and pointless.
When Lampard’s free-kick smashed against the underside, and Buffon saw Essien racing in for the rebound, the keeper got up slowly, to make sure it was not a 50-50 ball. Buffon didn’t fancy spending the next month in intensive care. He didn’t fancy neuro-surgery.