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F365's Champions League Winners & Losers

A brilliant win for Arsenal, but it wasn't a spectacular performance on another 'nearly' night in the Champions League. Barcelona still look vulnerable, while Bayern could choke again...

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Comments 1 - 10 of (16)

gerard1979 says...

English clubs have gone backwards in recent seasons but the likes of Madrid( Mourinho) Bayern Dortmund and to a lesser extent Juve have also improved.Chelsea got a tough group but the side they had under Mourinho would have been to good for Juve or Shahktar.City are handicapped by Mancini and some unbelievably poor Summer signings and nobody doubts Arsenals decline. When benitez Fergie and Mourinho were dominaing Europe it got a bit boring so maybe his seasons relatively poor performances will make us appreciate the next period of domination a bit more

Posted 11:50am 15th March 2013

nanouk (Rangers) says...

Interesting article. Agree we more or less everything except the "defense" of Mancini and City. could somebody please compare Man City to Borussia Dortmund. Last year Dortmund failed miserably like Man City as well. This year Dortmund are suddenly becoming kind of favorites to win the competition without the spending power that ManCity have and with a squad a lot less experienced than Citys.... But I do agree that one season doesn´t mean that the PL is in decline, if this happens the next 2 years then some people should start to worry.

Posted 11:59pm 14th March 2013

londongoonerau (Arsenal) says...

Mad enit - first season since 94 (not even this century) none of the english teams get to qrts and all of a sudden we have turned into (typical media - were the best, no were not, were the best, no were not) the worst league in europe, in decline blah blah blah. I remember when football was unpopular, we were classed as having a crap league (cause no foreign players wanted to come here) yet we would (all credit to the scousers - loved there teams of the seventies and early 80's) win europe every year and foreign teams hated playing against english teams. Why does everyone think anyone in the press actually know what they are talking about, england spain germany and italy are all the same. There is no best league cause every style is different and attracts different types of players to fit that league - do the so called experts not realise this in the media?

Posted 10:09pm 14th March 2013

HarryBoulton says...

City drew the toughest group I've ever seen, whilst Man Utd and Arsenal went out to arguably two of the three strongest sides in the competition; two sides rightfyllu fancied to win it. Chelsea might be disappointed, but they were in a state of disarray following last season success. I'm not worried about the strength of the EPL. Not yet. One swallow does not a summer make, and likewaise one poor year illustrates nothing other than one poor year.

Posted 4:32pm 14th March 2013

KevinBoatang says...

"The main reason for Manchester City's struggles is their poor seeding owing to a lack of European football in recent years", you can't seriously believe that twaddle?

Posted 3:50pm 14th March 2013

el diablo rojo says...

@spammo I'm not sure how you think FFP is going to aid European teams more than PL teams. Given that the likes of PSG, Real and Barca consistently spend far more money on players than they can physically afford, I would say that FFP will have the opposite effect on these teams. Look at what's happened to Malaga - a rich sugar daddy came in, started throwing money at the club and paying ridiculous wages to average players and then pulled back from his play thing when the money started getting tight. He's left behind a club that does not turnover enough money to sustain the large wage packets he'd given to these players and they are now pretty much crippled by debt (take heed Chelsea and Man City!). FFP is all about living to your means - keeping within defined budgets based on each club's level of turnover. The fact that the new PL TV deal with Sky is about to land every club in the PL with a minimum of £60m per season for the next three years is one reason the rest of Europe will NOT race miles ahead of the PL. So its not all doom and gloom!

Posted 3:40pm 14th March 2013

raphy13 (Manchester United) says...

I feel that had Milan had one or two leaders on the pitch they would have seen off Barca. They looked a state and kept giving the ball away but the way Barca chase after it when they dont have it is simply scary. Robinho should be in the losers section for not pumping the ball into the box from that free kick in extra time. Massive tit

Posted 2:11pm 14th March 2013

doherty (Chelsea) says...

Stanger knows it. Chelsea are in a massive period of change. With the exception of Steven Howard in The Sun and Jeff Stelling on Soccer Saturday, people are now cottoning on to the fact that Chelsea have evolved from this http://tinyurl.com/brky9gj to this http://tinyurl.com/cazztc4 in no more than 2/3 years. The future looks good, but it's still a work in progress.

Posted 1:46pm 14th March 2013

spammo says...

I can't help but think you're being a little blinkered in your arguments about the rest of Europe PL vs the rest of Europe. You can make any number of excuses (man city seeding, Man Utd being unlucky) but thats almost like being able to use statistics to prove anything. Surely what matters is not what the numbers show for the last 8 seasons, but what we can see in front of our eyes? It's evident that the relative quality of the football played by the European teams has improved relative to the PL in the last 2-3 years, such that nobody was too surprised when our teams were knocked out early. But more importantly, financially, it appears the European teams are catching up (and will no doubt be aided further in this by the financial fair play rules). Its no longer a one way street with all the best players coming to play in the PL. Suddenly we've got PSG as a serious contender as well as Real/Barca. Of course, random probability says we should get 1-2-3 teams into the quarter finals next year. But we should no longer have the high expectation that every time an English club plays a Spanish, German, Italian club it will prevail

Posted 1:35pm 14th March 2013

lfc1981 (Liverpool) says...

Its a blip season in the CL for English clubs this term, is worth remembering it will only be the second time since 2004/05 that an English club will not be in the final

Posted 1:34pm 14th March 2013

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