UEFA Champions League 2008-2009

Originally Posted by El Fre

Agree.

I want Barca to win it this year.

But, it's not going to happen, Chelsea is going to win tonight. They can't stop Drogba. Not without Puyol and Marquez. Caceres and Pique? No way.

Hope I'm wrong.

Pique has turned into a quality defender. He is now actually Spain's nr.1 defender, as a matter of fact. Caceras though.... he's a disaster.

And I agree with you Geotav, Wenger isn't a good tactician, I would have Carlo over him any day, even if it does mean putting up a bit to much with Seedorf :S

Originally Posted by GeoTav

The match of yesterday and the results of Arsenal in the last few years just shows that Wenger's youth politics doesn't work.

Like someone said on a French blog linked to Eurosport.fr, Arsenal is a potential WC team each year, there are a lot of promises each season, big hopes for the following one, but this statement is available each season, they never do the jump to this WC team.

And like Evra said in an interview: it was like if yesterday, we saw 11 men against 11 boys.

Also, Wenger is not a good tactician.

Just a thought after recalling some discussions here (people wanting Wenger and/or wanting us to buy the same kind of players than them).

Some point I agree on but the truth is the whole team has gone backwards since moving to the Emirates stadium, moving to such a big stadium has hit the club hard and its meant that there is hardly any money available to buy established players. Arsenal were struggling to make the top 4 spot so they had to invest in Arshavin who IMO has turned many heads so imagine if they had the money to invest in other quality players.

I think scraping 4th is enough for Arsenal until 7 years from now when the debt is paid off and they can invest heavily into the team, but as Wenger said Arsenal are a selling club and every summer they must sell players.

I agree to some extent that Wenger is not on the same level as SAF, Jose, Carlo, Rafa tactically, but at the same time when was the last time an italian team knocked Arsenal out of the CL? I remember his team knocking the top 4 teams in Italy over the last 4/5 years, also on top of that he took a team to be unbeaten a whole season which sounds easy but is very difficult.

Arsenal do not have the spending power of United, Chelsea and Liverpool and the table shows that.

I think there might be a mass exodus in the Summer though so it should be interesting. I would have preferred them to win the CL but heres me hoping Barca win tonight so we wont have to go through what we did last season where the final was a joke.

Chelsea 1-0 Barça after 9 minutes ... I hope not to see the same scenario than yesterday !!

Great goal by essien...real wonder goal...but they will have to score more because barca looks angry now and will probably score at least 1 goal tonight

Originally Posted by El Fre

Great goal by essien...real wonder goal...but they will have to score more because barca looks angry now and will probably score at least 1 goal tonight

Unfortunately, it looks more like a 2-0 for Chelsea in the next minutes than a goal from Barcelona ...

Where is barca?!?!?

Where are the ref's glasses????

2 clear penalties for chelsea in just 3 mins

What a goal from Essein!! It's a shame he isn't as stylish a name as Zidane or Ronaldo because that goal was every bit as good as Zizou's goal off against Bayer Leverkusen. Maybe even better. Barcelona are knocking on the door but are just missing the last pass. Exciting match because one goal from Barca and the tie would change completely.

Originally Posted by Mystik

What a goal from Essein!! It's a shame he isn't as stylish a name as Zidane or Ronaldo because that goal was every bit as good as Zizou's goal off against Bayer Leverkusen. Maybe even better. Barcelona are knocking on the door but are just missing the last pass. Exciting match because one goal from Barca and the tie would change completely.

Exciting regarding the suspens, but not very good match honestly in terms of pleasure to watch ... Barcelona didn't have one single chance to score, they are slow in midfield (because of their weird replacements and because of Chelsea midfielders), ...

See what I mean, to make it in the CL you need some luck and Barca had a lot of it tonight. Dunno if it was a deserved victory but I prefer a Barca - ManU final anyday over a repeat of last year.

Last 7 minutes that were very exciting ...
Only one good shot by Barcelona, and it's a goal.

In the first leg, the referee made mistakes in favour of Chelsea, this time it was more than clearly in favour of Barcelona (despite the red card) ...

Barcelona can be happy, anyway, Messi, Eto'o, Keita, Alves and Abidal were just horrible to watch. I'd even give a special mention to Alves, how can the best RB in the world play like that ? No good cross, bad at defending, everything he did was bad ...

BARCA!!! Good to see Chelsea out, at times I thought I was watching Inter play...

Originally Posted by Mystik

See what I mean, to make it in the CL you need some luck and Barca had a lot of it tonight. Dunno if it was a deserved victory but I prefer a Barca - ManU final anyday over a repeat of last year.

Yep, undeserved win but a better final ... even if MU will be the ultra favourite for this final (actually, even with Chelsea, MU would have been favourite). Why ?

Abidal and Alves suspended, Marquez injured, who will play ? Puyol-Pique, but then ? Caceres on the left ? Who on the right ? Sylvinho ?

Xavi, Eto'o, Messi and Alves don't even deserve a 3 in match ratings, very poor, lucky to win.

I don't see them fielding Caceras, he's a liability... Normally they'd probably put Puyol as a LB, since he's very versitile, but with the lack of CB's it's hard to say.

Daniel Alves is usually one of my favorite Barcelona players, but he had two really bad games against Chelsea. He's normally the reason why Messi is so great, because they form such a good duo, but against Chelsea he never really got going.

I don't know if the win was undeserved, seen over two games at least. Barcelona got some decisions their way, but you can't ignore the red card, which was a blatent dive. And the amount of penalty appeals in the first leg for Barcelona. Drogba is a good striker, but when his finishing is as bad as it was in these two games, then they only have themselves to blame.

Anyways, I hope to see a better Barcelona against Manchester United. They might've beat Real Madrid 6-2, but honostly, they looked alot better earlier this season, it was just Real Madrid being terrible really.

Xavi!!??! Xavi was excellent to me IMO Messi wasn't bad either he was helping the playmaking and provided the final assist. Alves however deserves a -10 for this performance. Worst crossing I've seen from a RB since Oddo. Whenever the ball got to him he put it in the stands.