A Tale of Two Cities

Had you asked me at the start of the season which of the English clubs was most likely to qualify out of their group and who would struggle, I would certainly not have said that the Manchester clubs would both be out and the two London clubs qualified. Given Arsenal’s form at the beginning of the season, Chelsea’s ever wavering back four and the dominance of United and City throughout, what has happened in the Champions League has been quite a shock to the system.

So let’s start with Manchester United. With the exception perhaps of Group G, from which Porto should’ve easily qualified and failed, United had by far and away the easiest group from which to qualify. We all know that Benfica have the talent and ability to cause a team problems, but really Manchester United should’ve comfortably beaten them. Looking at the other teams in that group, FC Basel and Otelul Galati, even if United had struggled against Benfica, a ridiculous thought a few years ago, they could easily have finished second in that group. A loss and a draw to Basel and two draws to Benfica were really very poor results for a team which has thrived in the Champions League of late, especially at Old Trafford. Defensive fragility has been a real problem for United this season, something which the Match of the Day boys pointed out weeks ago. Teams are able to create so many chances against this team in comparison to the one of last season. Goals have also been a problem, Rooney has literally only just come back to form, admittedly against Wolves, and without the likes of Hernandez I feel they are going to struggle a bit until he comes back. In short, it was a very poor display for a United side boasting names like Rooney, Nani and Hernandez. Fergie has no desire to win the Europa League, that much is clear, I expect him to focus on the domestic trophies and set about trying to make up that £20million loss to Basel just a week ago.

Now for City. The problem for City was always going to be inexperience, their squad is obviously awesome. I think this showed in the early stages of the competition, the draw at home to Napoli and loss away to Munich in which they were dominated had a detrimental impact on their European campaign. Napoli really should’ve been beaten and unfortunately for City fans good performances home and away against Villarreal and a solid win at home to Munich were no enough to see them qualify. Napoli are an excellent team with some of the best forwards in the Italian league at their disposal, they played really well against City at home and, in my opinion, probably deserved to qualify. City fans won’t care as much as United fans about their team’s exit, they will probably win the Europa league and the Premier League in large part thanks to their enormous and talented squad. City were unfortunate that they ended up in a very tough group, with little European experience, but they won’t care, they’ll be back next year as English champions and wouldn’t bet against them going significantly further than they have done this year.

Arsenal and Chelsea were the surprise packages in the group stages, especially Arsenal. With games against Marseille, Olympiakos and German Champions Borussia Dortmund I really feared for Arsenal. With our worst start to a season since 1958, which included an 8-2 hammering to United at Old Trafford, I was seriously concerned we might not even make the Europa League. However, as has been proven in recent times Arsenal are becoming more and more of a cup team, good runs in the Carling Cup last year (which we do not talk about for obvious reasons) and the Champions League in the last few seasons have shown that in one-off games we do perform better than in the league. With players like the goal machine that is Van Persie playing well along with the likes of Walcott and Song, Arsenal finished top of Group F with a game to spare. Here’s hoping for a good draw in the next round and, fingers crossed, here comes another cup run. Chelsea also finished top of their group thanks to a final match day victory at home to Valencia. Bayer Leverkusen and Valencia were not easy tasks for Villas-Boas’ men but they overcame them at home, something which City somewhat naively failed to do and which cost them later on. Chelsea seem to have turned a corner, wins away to Newcastle, qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League and a great victory at home to Manchester City last night all point to recovery. I still maintain that defensive frailties may cost them silverware, but coming from an Arsenal fan who’s club don’t actually know what defending is and who haven’t won a trophy for ages they’ll still do better than us I think.

The draw for the next round will be very interesting. Both Arsenal and Chelsea will be looking to avoid the dreaded Milan tie, but if they get favourable draws it may well be one of the London Clubs singing loudest come the end of the season (outside the Emirates library that is)instead of the thus far dominant Mancunian clubs.

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