I watched Bordeaux, Milan and Chelsea last night.
Bordeaux beat ten-man Bayern Munich 2-1 but missed two penalties.
Marouane Chamakh, the striker linked 700 times with Wenger, is not good enough to play for Arsenal. He’s not good enough for the EPL.
Yoann Gourcuff, the best player in the French league last season, isn’t good enough either.
On last night’s performance those two are a pair of elegant Phrench supermodels who wouldn’t last ten minutes in the EPL. Forget them. I deeply regret writing about Chamakh on ANR. I won’t make that mistake again. He’s a bantamweight who should stay where he is.
Salomon Kalou, another striker Wenger was said to like, is a much better player who misses chances. He scored two and missed two last night as Chelsea smashed Atletico Madrid 4-0.
Lampard scored a typical goal but on TV this morning I saw Carlo Ancelotti say he did want to talk about the goal, just about Lampard’s work for 90 minutes in every game. Quite right. Lampard is a team player with amazing durability.
PATO is a 20-year old Brazilian who is much better striker than Kalou.
Pato is the kind of talent I want to see at Arsenal . But I never will. The club isn’t ambitious enough to buy a kid of his quality. Pato is twice as good as Anelka was at the same age .He scored twice in Milan’s 3-2 win at Real Madrid. Two howlers by the usually superb Casillas contributed to that shock defeat. Dida had set the tone by fumbling a simple shot by Granero to allow Raul to pop in the first goal.
Seedorf’s chipped cross found our ball-watched left back Marcelo, who left Pato in ten yards of space to volley in for 3-2. I haven’t seen ball-watching of that calibre by a left back since Kenny Sansom let Steve Coppell bang two past Pat Jennings in a 4-2 win for Man United at Highbury.
As you know, United went to Moscow to play on a plastic pitch without Rooney, Evra, Fletcher and Giggs. They controlled the game and won it with a late goal by Valencia. CSKA Moscow 0 Man United 1. Sir Alex’s side has a wonderful away record in the Champions League : 14 games unbeaten.
VERDICT on Matchday 3: Chelsea and Manchester United are much stronger than Liverpool and Arsenal.
If Liverpool have lost four games in a row and if that continues, Manchester City will replace them in the top four, and Arsenal can relax. But not too much. Relaxing cost them a win in Alkmaar. Arsenal played the last half hour as if it was a training game and conceded in the 93rd minute.