One In, One Out (oh, and another two out)

So, the first knockout stage of the Champions League is over for our British teams. My reflections:

Chelsea Vs. Barcelona
Player for player, Chelsea are better than Barcelona. As a friend of mine commented, however, Chelsea are a ‘solid’ team: virtually all 8 out of 10 players, with perhaps Crespo and Lampard poking the boundaries of world class. Ronaldinho is a 10 out of 10 player, and has the capacity to nullify the collective worth of a team full of 8s.

Secondly, something that I think is often overlooked is the quality of Barcelona’s defence. I believe Marquez (above right) to be vastly underrated, and commands the Barca defence, Terry style. Puyol on form is one of the best defenders in the world. Oleguer and Van Bronkhorst are decent, and Edmilson and Motta do the job cleaning up. Their main strength, however, is organisation. Whilst they may not be individually brilliant, Barca are a team that know how to defend. Over two legs they conceded a single goal (lets face it Chelsea’s penalty last night was a joke) to a team that has pissed all over the Premiership. They didn’t give Chelsea’s creative players time on the ball, and closed down Chelsea attacks from midfield quickly and firmly. I don’t need to say anything about Barca’s attack.

Thirdly, drumroll, I feel Mourinho made a tactical error in the second leg. Chelsea needed to score twice at the Camp Nou, and the special one decided to do this by twisting rather than sticking. By moving Cole to central midfield he changed the formula that has made Chelsea so formidable this year. The players often seemed unsure what to do when they had the ball, and the usual options weren’t presenting themselves. This is because they were forced to get used to something new at the same time as trying to win the most important match they have had all year.

Mourinho’s line-up was deliberately attacking, but they can be as attacking as they want with their tried and tested midfield, they just needed to go for it. They missed Gudjonsson’s distribution in the middle pinging it out to Cole and Robben on the wings. Joe Cole is awesome on his game, but he is not the type of player to sit in the middle of the park and run proceedings. Cole is always going to attack defences, so let him do it from the wing, rather than having him in the centre where his marauding requires Lampard to be more restrained than otherwise. It sounds odd, but even playing Maniche instead of Duff would have meant Chelsea could have attacked in a format they know well and are more likely to succeed with: two defensive midfielders freeing Lampard to get on the ball and have a crack, and their two best wingers, Cole and Robben, twisting up the flanks.

Arsenal Vs. Real Madrid
As I have commented previously, there are fundamental problems at Real Madrid, all of which reared their head tonight. Ronaldo was lazy, Zidane did what he could (which to be honest is not much anymore) and tactically Caro got it all wrong. From the kick-off Real tried to lift balls towards a deeply unimpressive Ronaldo for him to hold up or try to break through the Arsenal defence. Arsenal’s highly motivated defence were all over him from the outset, winning virtually every ball in the air, and yet Real Madrid kept on trying the same tactic for 90 minutes.

Simultaneously, Arsenal play best against teams that try to play 'proper', open football against them. This is because, chances are, they are better than you at it. They stutter when Robbie Savages are glued to their hips pinching their ears. Closing down voraciously and maintaining a tight combative midfield is not in Real Madris's DNA, especially when they have to win. Graveson is big, strong and has a skinhead. He is not, however, a defensive midfielder and never has been. He has good distribution and a decent strike, but does not have a defensive mentality and had no idea how to deal with an Arsenal midfield expert at scurrying. In any case, when Guti dropped and played the libero role he looked much better in front of the back two than Graveson. Neither of them kept up with Arsenal all night.

Hleb (right) looked like he had been playing the Arsenal way all his life, and together with Fabregas (who I have underrated), Ljungberg and an ever-present Uncle Thierry cut up a desperate looking Real midfield with vintage Arsenal geometric passing. Even Reyes had a good game as he did in the first leg, despite missing a sitter, noticeably raising his game for the Spanish audience. Ebou and Toure made a number of forward runs which split the priorities of the Real midfield and defence, eliminating a ‘keep to your man’ defensive strategy. Henry was all on his own up front. He is, however, one of the two players in the world (the other being Ronaldinho) who it is seemingly impossible to outnumber. All in all, the best team won.

Rangers Vs Villareal, Liverpool Vs. Benfica
Neither team had the quality to progress. In reality Rangers wouldn’t have thought they had. Liverpool, mistakenly, thought they did. Wake up! Gerrard id the only world class player they have, their strikers are not (or no longer) in any way prolific, they need two more quality midfielders, and more depth in defence. Until these problems are remedied they have no right to complain at not being in the quarter-finals of the greatest club tournament in the world.

I will say this only once. It feels dirty but I’m going to do it. Well done Arsenal, and good luck.