London Calling – 10 Things I noticed from Champions League Tuesday
Chelsea 2-0 Marseille – As respected pundit and famous dancing leather robot Bruce Forsyth used to say; Points make prizes. What do point’s make? – Prizes! And Chelsea are inclined to agree, as they eased themselves closer to the round of 16 with a competent if not exhilarating performance against a decent Marseille side. The away team actually had the better of it in the second half, and with a heavy smattering of former Premiership players (oh, *cough* sorry, I meant “Barclays Premier League” players) never looked intimidated or second best, except when it came to doing something effective in that little boxy thingy with the net in. As Ruud Gullit mentioned post match, inbetween the fawning man-crush attentions of Jamie Redknapp (Literally!), this is likely the last chance for the house that Jose built to win this coveted trophy. The creaking legs of Lamps, Big Man, Cashley et all will soon need to give way to the re-building process if Chelsea want to stay on their perch in future seasons. So it was fitting in a way (and for the purposes of making randomly pretentious allusions for editorial continuity) that the two players who’s penalty misses defined their closest assault on the prize, were the ones who ensured them the points.
Big Men on Campus – Any fears of Chelsea collapsing again when faced with a team of any substance were eased within seven minutes when they took the lead courtesy of Englands Brave Lion (TM), who flicked a short (and possibly bad) corner with the outside of his boot into the near post past the commendable efforts of the player on the line, who was valiantly trying to remember if he’d locked the patio doors or not. This was Big Man’s first goal of the season, and his first in the Champions League since everyone found out what a terrible and despicable person he was. Once the catalyst of France’s massive World Cup brain fart, Nicolas Anelka, had endeared himself further to his compatriots with a cheeky penalty, the game was all but over competitively. Yet despite all Marseille’s offensive enthusiasm, the home side still really should’ve won by three or four, with both Alex and Essien striking the woodwork. But they didn’t. And 2-0 was about fair in the end.
Le Freak, C’est Chic – Marseille is cool. The birthplace of both Zinedine Zidane and Eric Cantona can’t not be cool. It couldn’t not be cool even if wore corduroy trousers with rainbow braces and stuck two pieces of blu-tac up it’s nose. So if you’re going to start fighting in an English football stadium – something which hasn’t been cool since the mid 80s, no matter how many hobbits get into it – you might as well do it shirtless with your cap on backwards and a Gauloises hanging from your mouth. I say fighting, but of couse being French it looked far more like seriously profound gesticulating, but whatever the manner of troubles that seemed to erupt pre-match, it didn’t stop the Marseillais raucously out-singing the Bridge at kick off and mostly throughout, fittingly for the city that spawned La Marseillaise.
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The Future’s Bright, The Future’s…erm..Blue? – Despite all the talk of Manchester City ruining the English game with their money splashing mercenary ways, it can’t have escaped notice that an awful lot of promising young players have somehow wound up in the England team via way of Eastlands. Now it seems the original money splashing mercenaries (Well, after Blackburn) are in on the act too. Not only has Ancelotti given a reassuring amount of playing time to former City boy Daniel Sturridge (who missed practically an open goal last night incidentally) but he also gave his third run out in a week to the most talked about player I’d never heard of and apparent future of club and country, Josh McEachran. I failed to ascertain from his three touches whether or not he was the new Fabregas, but it’s interesting, if not downright startling that as United nurture their Italian prodigy and Liverpool’s children lose to Northampton, the future of the English National team seems to lie in the hands of the blues. Shirted and blooded. Ruining the game indeed.
FK Partizan 1-3 Arsenal – In a game that nearly didn’t happen due to faulty electrics and insufficient floodlighting, Arsenal rolled out their usual routine of looking both inspiring and underwhelming at the same time before eventually winning comfortably in a hostile but at least flatteringly lit atmosphere in Belgrade. The Gunners rode their luck a bit early on, showing the same kind of galic nonchalance in defence that let West Brom boing them at the weekend, but once Andrei Arshavin had given them the lead, they settled into their more natural passing game, with only a slight hint of dodgy decision making and unnecessary over elaboration. Amazingly, they also seemed to have someone vaguely competent between the sticks for once, and even more amazingly, it was Łukasz Fabiański.
Where there’s a Wilshere, there’s a way – Little Jack Wilshere seems to have returned from Bolton a boy anew, like a small child sent away to fat camp who comes back 6ft 2 and built like a boxer, providing that boxer isn’t Ricky Hatton. Except not 6ft 2 obviously, or particularly built, and not alarmingly fat to begin with of course, but you get my point, hopefully, which is basically just that he’s really something special now. Young Jack seems to have been involved in almost everything good Arsenal have done this season, and he was the lynch pin for the breakthrough again here, jinxing his way into the box before side rolling and pulling the ball back in one motion to set up Arshavin for a simple finish. Lovely stuff. An England call up can’t be far away. But it probably will be knowing England.
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The Pen is Mightier than the Sword – From then on the Gunners upped the tempo and could have grabbed three or four but for wasteful finishing and acrobatic clearances. That was until Denilson handled the ball in his own box, giving Partizan striker Cleo the chance to level from the spot, which he duly accepted. Soon after the interval Arsenal were awarded a penalty themselves after Chamakh was very really brought down by last man Jovanovic about half a millimeter inside the area, but still decided that a comical exaggerated dive 2 seconds after the infringement was the way to go. The Partizan man was sent on his way and justice for the Moroccan Amateur Dramatics society, if not football, was done when Arshavin blasted the kick straight at Stojkovic’s legs. After Arsenal had eventually restored their lead through Chamakh (who I still seem to be the only person in football punditry/journalism/blogging to have realised is s**t) and extended it though Squillaci, Partizan were awarded another penalty, this time after Kieran Gibbs had clumsily fouled and then fallen on someone, which apparently wasn’t a cast iron nailed on penalty in the impartial eyes of hugely unbiased co-commentator Alan Smith. Cleo missed this one, and Arsenal go marching on with six points from six.
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Absolutely Fabulous – The decision of who to field in goal for the big Super Sunday 3D HD Armageddon showdown with Chelsea just got a little harder for Arsene after a great penalty saving performance from stand in keeper Łukasz “Well I didn’t realise they’d taken it!” Fabiański. His heroics also included a couple of smart one on ones late in the game and with Manuel Almunia doing his best to remind everyone he’s still available and worthy of playing for England at the weekend by making several calamitous errors, Wenger could do worse than going on form.
In Other News – Jose and The Decepticons continued their unwavering march to rule the world by boring them into submission by beating Auxerre with a late Angel Di Maria goal. Things are so dire down Galactico way that Jose even seems to have lost his style, sitting glumly in the dugout in a shiny pimp suit whilst Serio Ramos – who’s looking more like Val Kilmer than the fat Val Kilmer lookalike that passes for the actual Val Kilmer these days – handled the ball in the build up. Speaking of handling, elsewhere the most evil man that ever lived ever, Luis Suarez, showed a delightful bit of skill to set up the opener in the clash of the not quite Titans anymore between Ajax and Milan, before Zlatan made sure the spoils were shared by executing a bicycle kick half a yard from goal. Also Cluj should be a rude word, but isn’t. Unless we make it one use it enough. This is something I feel almost forcibly compelled to do.
….And Finally – The gimpy pointless flagless officials behind the goal line finally had something to do in the Spartak -Zilina game as Ari’s header was cleared away from inside the netting. Thankfully, due to the brilliant human eyesight of these much needed and hardworking bastions of the game, they were able to clearly see that the ball was a good 3 yards behind the line and allow the ref to award the goal. Thank God we have them.
You can follow Oscar on Twitter here; http://twitter.com/oscarpyejeary Where you can join his campaign to make sure every reference to anything that ever happens in football is prefixed by the word “Barclays” just in case anyone ever forgets.