Champions League

After the draw for Quarter and Semi finals, we are a step closer to the Madrid finale which gives another chance to look at the potential winners. I said last week that I expected Chelsea to beat Inter. I obviously under-estimated the Italian champions and they were the better team despite the poor refereeing performance. Inter are a real threat this year with Mourinho perhaps needing to reiterate his credentials in Europe. If they beat CSKA Moscow  (I’m not sticking my neck out anymore), they will meet either Barcelona or Arsenal which will be a very tough semi-final whoever they face. The favourites have been handed probably the toughest draw, with games against Arsenal probably followed by a tie against Mourinho’s men. Most people will expect Barca to go through against Arsenal but I’m not so sure. Arsenal are one of the few teams who will be able to keep the ball off Barca for long periods, this along with their immense pace and the increasing form of Nasri, Bendtner and Song gives them a decent chance. A lot will depend on how well each team defends and having the second leg at the Nou Camp gives Barca an advantage. Whatever happens we should be in for a true footballing treat!

This year we are guaranteed a French team in the semi-finals which adds a bit of variety, don’t write them off though, Bordeaux are a very solid outfit with a couple of standout players in Gourcuff and Chamakh. Lyon have already demonstrated they are capable of upsetting Europe’s big teams with the scalp of Real Madrid. Bayern Munich and Man United meet in the fourth quarter-final and luckily we (United) have the second leg at home as I wouldn’t fancy going to Germany needing a result. This Bayern team aren’t as dominant as the beaten 1999 finalists but, slightly unusually for a German team, they have an abundance of creativity and pace, and are capable of scoring at any moment. I’m quite confident United should have enough in the tank to take control of the tie at Old Trafford, especially with an on-fire Wayne Rooney leading the line.

So the smart money would be on a repeat of last years final. If this happens I would expect Barca to win although for some reason I just don’t think they will get there. Whoever wins the Arsenal/Barca clash will gain huge confidence, but then they will probably have to face a very good Inter Milan team. Also teams like Arsenal and Bordeaux aren’t used to fighting on both European and domestic fronts at this stage of the season, unlike Man United and Barca, this could be a crucial fact as we get further into the tournament and teams may have to choose what is most important to them…

Beauty or the Beast

This is a kind of follow on from my last post. What I mean by this title is simple. Can you get a team that plays good football and defends well (oustide the top 8), or can you only get one or another. As I’ve mentioned before, teams such as Wigan are capable of playing good football and Martinez insists he will continue, but without the defending to go with it, they will be in trouble come May. On the other side of the coin, you your Stoke’s. Teams that are very difficult to beat, hassle and kick you, whilst all the while depending on winning a match through long balls or a set piece (a throw in at that). I would like to think that somewhere you can get the best of both worlds. Sunderland’s woeful form throughout the winter has been temporarily stopped, firstly through resolute and last-ditch defending, but to be fair they played the ball on the deck in the first half against Citeh. Fulham too, have turned themselves into quite a decent outfit over the past 2 or 3 years, mainly down to Roy Hodgson. So where are the next set of tough teams who play football? Sam Allardyce, while at Newcastle, seemed to try to play a shorter passing game so who knows, if Blackburn can get themselves a few more ‘ball players’ they could add to the cause. Stoke too, bought Tuncay in the summer, perhaps a sign of where they want to go in terms of playing style. Then there are the original ‘battlers’ Bolton, Owen Coyle has always tried to play football on the ground, and with signings like Lee Chung-Yong and Jack Wilshere this is set to continue. So maybe it isn’t all doom and gloom down in the depths of the Premier League.

Deserve to go down?

All of the main relegation candidates lost this weekend apart from Wolves. From what I saw of the bottom 6 teams, you could argue that they deserve to go down. The main thing that these lower teams need to be is ‘solid’. I don’t mean this in a physical way, but organised and hard to beat defensively. It is from this base that their attacking players can try get them a few goals. I was particularly unimpressed with Hull, West Ham and Burnley. After keeping themselves in the game for such a long time at Stamford Bridge, West Ham let Drogba and Lampard walk into their 6 yard box, unmarked, twice. Malouda played well on the left, but when you’re unmarked in the box it makes it a lot easier. Hull too, were pretty bad in defence. Arsenal found it difficult on the Rugby pitch at the KC Stadium and although Hull got themselves into the game, they also got themselves out of it again, with an incredibly deep defence and once again, individual errors. As for Burnley, 63 goals against pretty much speaks for itself. Wigan are another team in the same predicament, they can play some decent stuff and are very capable of scoring goals but they simply can’t defend and this will get you nowhere in the Prem. Teams like Blackburn and Sunderland have learnt to go back to basics and are moving up the table. Will it be too late for the others to follow suit?

Tags: Burnley, Defending, Hull, Relegation, West Ham

English team’s dominance?

At the beginning of the season and, in fact, during it, the balance of power seemed to be slipping away from English clubs in Europe. Barcelona were (and probably still are) clearly the best team in Europe and Real Madrid’s enormous spending spree meant that perhaps ‘La Liga’ was the one to watch this year. The elite teams, or so called ‘Big 4′, in England also started to look a lot more beatable, having lost 25 already this season, compared to something like 17 in the whole of last year. You could even go as far as to say there isn’t a ‘Big 4′ anymore.

However, for me, this doesn’t seem to have materialised. The obvious example would be the fact that Arsenal and Manchester United won 5-0 and 4-0 respectively, while Madrid crashed out. As well as this, Barca have looked a little shaky recently, and were a bit lucky to get the 1-1 away at Stuttgart. There is more to it than that though.

I think that although the Spanish league undoubtedly has more quality, the English league has become more competitive, with anyone in the top 8 capable of beating each other on their day. To be honest, this may be down to a drop in quality but then you have teams like Everton, Aston Villa, Man City and even Spurs getting better. Whereas in Spain, it really is only Barca and Madrid, and despite how good they each might be, both seem to be struggling to find prolonged form.

If Chelsea beat Inter, which I expect them to do, there will be once again three English sides through to the quarter finals of Europe’s premier club competition and to be fair, with the exception of Barca you would fancy one of them to win it.

Tags: big four, Champions League, Dominance, English Clubs

Dramatic weekend

I haven’t posted in a while, and after a pretty dramatic weekend I remembered about my blog. After a week of intense speculation, Bellamy did start for City, oh and Bridge forgot to shake Terry’s hand. The ridiculous booing of Wayne Bridge from the Chelsea fans was bit of a shock for me. Who can really blame him, it was a personal issue which ultimately makes it bigger than football and as Craig Bellamy so accurately pointed out, “everyone knows what Terry’s like.” I must point out that although I agree with Bellamy the words pot, kettle and black spring to mind. On the actual game, as a united fan, I’m glad city won and was pleasantly surprised with Mike Dean’s performance. In a game with numerous big decisions, I thought Dean got most, if not all right while at the same time letting the game flow wherever possible, no matter how hard both teams tried to counter this in the first half.

The other big incident on Saturday was the horror injury suffered by young Aaron Ramsey. He is one of my favourite young players in England and I hope he makes a speedy recovery, physically and more importantly, mentally. The notion of ‘you have to kick arsenal to beat arsenal’ seems to be the order of the day and while I believe the tackle wasn’t meant to break poor Ramsey’s leg, it was meant to ‘let him know Shawcross was about’ and this is wrong. With the risk of contradicting myself, something definitely needs to be done. An inferior football team will always look to ‘work harder’ and ‘be physical’, from grass roots to the Premier League. It’s a difficult one for me, because I love the physical aspect that the Premier League retains over other European leagues, but when things like this happen, teams and players need to realise the limits.

Talking of overly physical teams, Rafa Benitez had an awful lot to say about Sam Allardyce on Sunday. Allardyce was famed for his physical tactics while at Bolton, and now Blackburn, but to be fair at Newcastle he tried to play better football, probably due to having better players. I don’t know how Rafa can mock Allardyce, however funny it was, when his team are playing way below start of season expectations. Perhaps it is a clever PR trick, but after winning an important game, there was no need for Benitez to make personal comments about the oppo. Also on Sunday, Man Utd won the Carling Cup, deservedly on the day, but what a different day it may have been if Vidic was sent off in the 4th minute. I have no idea why Phil Dowd didn’t produce a red card, but typical Man Utd, made sure they capitalised on their good fortune. Michael Owen looked pleasingly sharp until he was inevitably substituted through injury and I think he can make a decent claim to be on a plane to South Africa. One person, who will certainly be on that plane, is Wayne Rooney. Another goal, another winner, another header. I hope that Rooney can reach the 40 goal mark this season, although it will be difficult. His recent heading purple patch is no coincidence. In the past two years, Rooney has spoken about working on aspects of his game, firstly getting into goal scoring areas more often, and then working on his heading. Both Wayne and United are reaping the benefits now, and it just goes to show, no matter what age you are, in any sport practice makes perfect (or at least helps a great deal).

Tags: Arsenal, Bridge, Carling Cup, Chelsea, Ramsey, Rooney, terry

Penalty Problems

In light of Spurs missing yet another penalty on Saturday at the Reebok Stadium, I thought the matter of ‘pens’ should be discussed, with a World Cup looming it looks like we need some practice. It seems to me that the onus has changed somewhat. Instead of expecting the taker to score, it’s more 50-50 now, with a lack of surprise when a penalty is saved. Frank Lampard, and before him Ruud Van Nistelrooy had a great knack for banging the ball into the bottom corner from 12 yards. You can add Cristiano Ronaldo to that list too. Owen Hargreaves has always had a good penalty, usually lifting the ball into the top corner, most players find this too risky though. Then there is the ‘smash it’ technique, used by Gareth Barry and recently Carlos Tevez, this technique seems decent although Tevez was lucky to see his pen cross the line at Bolton in midweek. Spurs seem to have the worst of it though, with two England hopefuls Tom Huddlestone and, worryingly Jermain Defoe. The latter seems more able to bang it in from 20 yards with 3 defenders on him, rather than a free shot from 12 yards. They say practice makes perfect, but in practice you can’t re-create the pressure of a Premier League match, let alone a World Cup game. England have notoriously been awful in shootouts and it seems that practice and technique aren’t the answer, we just need some more bottle.

Tags: England, Penalties, Penalty, Pens, Spurs

Nani sending off

I wasn’t going to post about this, but it’s really been bugging me and I have come to the conclusion that it is a split decision. While I agree that the challenge by Nani was reckless and very dangerous, he did play the ball and the only way to tackle someone straight on, is to go studs showing. Football is becoming a more and more non-contact sport although I do agree that players need protection. I have therefore concluded that, when you are sent off after winning the ball, regardless of circumstance, something is seriously wrong!

Tags: Nani, Peter Walton, Red Card