Europa League Winners To Get Champions League Place / More Transfer News
Good morning. I have precious little to look at across the many football websites this morning. One of the top stories on BBC Sport is of Titus Bramble suggesting he may or may not leave Sunderland. Reading that news fails to titillate me. Could there be a worse transfer story? Read more
Fulham Sign Amorebieta / Pellegrini To Manchester City
Good morning. It is quite staggering just how much change has happened in the Premier League over the past few days. Tony Pulis has "mutually" walked away from Stoke City, which actually means he was sacked without ceremony by Peter Coates. Arsenal have been linked with any striker that has a Read more
Jovetic To Arsenal / Kolo Toure To Liverpool / Tony Pulis Leaves Stoke
GOOD MORNING! Do you wanna know why I typed that in caps lock? Because Tony Pulis has "mutually walked away from Stoke City after chairman Peter Coates sacked him for a sh*t run of results." There's nothing "mutual" about Pulis' departure, he's been sacked. Why? Because Stoke City have stagnated Read moreMourinho Leaves Real Madrid / Is He So Special?
Good morning. Real Madrid have officially announced what we've all been expecting since about November: Jose Mourinho is leaving Real Madrid after three years in charge, in which time he won the league and Copa Del Rey. Mourinho will take charge for the final time against Osasuna on June 1st, Read more
Arsenal's Platform To Build On / Tottenham Worries
The contrasting situations between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur at the end of 90 minutes on Sunday, spoke volumes for the importance of Champions League football. On the one hand, Arsenal celebrated as if they had lifted a trophy, for which they have been criticised for. "Fourth is not a trophy, this just Read more
Good morning!
Josep ‘Pep’ Guardiola will become Bayern Munich manager on July 1st, 2013, when current manager, Jupp Heynckes, retires from management at the end of this season. Heynckes, who is at Bayern for a third spell, wasn’t inclined to renew his contract with the Bavarian club beyond the end of this season and after a series of meetings, decided to bring an end to his time at the Allianz Arena. Read more
Guys, I’ve asked once already, ‘GIVE ME THE BALL!’
Morning.
I say this every single time we have an international break, but, ‘I hate it’. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that the national teams need time together and with the limited time they have together ahead of major tournaments, I fully understand international breaks, plus, when else would you play qualifying matches? What I hate, is how it disrupts what most of us live for at a weekend, watching our respective club sides do battle and if you’re a fan of Liverpool for example, this break couldn’t have arrived at a better moment, but what if you’re a fan of Arsenal, Swansea, Manchester United and so on? All you want is to play the next game when you’re in form.
Plus, what the hell am I supposed to write on a Wednesday during an international break? Read more
Once a man with hair, watching Lionel Messi play every day has finally proved too much for Guardiola.
Good morning!
There’s only really the one place we can start today, and that would be Barcelona, where manager Pep Guardiola is believed to be quitting his position as manager after winning just the three trophies this year.
In news that will certainly alert top clubs across Europe, including Chelsea and, for some reason, AC Milan and Manchester City (I personally think Allegri and Mancini are doing very well in their jobs). Despite a clamour of clubs wishing to land Guardiola as manager, it is believed that the former Barcelona and Brescia player will take a year out of the game.
As a manager, Guardiola only accepts one year extensions of his deal and come the end of the last few seasons, it always seems as if we’ve been discussing Guardiola’s future, but never has there been anything as ‘concrete’ as this latest development in the whole Guardiola-Barcelona love saga.
Negotiations started yesterday for a new one year deal, with negotiations rapidly turning into attempts of locking Guardiola to a nearby filing cabinet in an attempt to force Guardiola to stay. The part about a filing cabinet is most definitely false, but Sandro Rosell would have been pleading with Guardiola to accept the extension and, as reported by the Daily Mail, (not that I read it) told Guardiola to, ‘sleep on it’.
Personally, I don’t understand why Pep Guardiola would want to quit. This is the first season in which Barcelona have experienced genuine problems during Guardiola’s reign and if Guardiola is the man to leave a position every time the going gets tough, well, he’d have left Arsenal seven times in seven years, and resigned as Chelsea manager just after agreeing a deal to become manager.
I do doubt very much that Guardiola is quitting on those grounds however. As much as I’d like to poke fun at the fact it must be difficult for Guardiola to spectate as Messi scores a hat-trick every other week, I do believe that the pressure which partners the Barcelona managerial position has proved too much for a young man yet to experience managing anybody outside of Barcelona.
It is believed that Guardiola has become concerned with relations between himself and a few players. Barcelona have not been performing to their optimum level, something which comes hand in hand with being displayed as the Harlem Globetrotters, having to compete all over the world as a result of their brilliance. This pressure and magnitude of pressure is certainly affecting Guardiola, who lets remember, is essentially inexperienced as a manager and as a result, this is impacting on his players who are growing unsure as to whether Guardiola will stay on as manager.
Guardiola is expected to announce his decision just after the season’s end. I’m looking forward to seeing the fall-out from this and what actually happens. I’m not one to speculate about the future, so I’m not going to say where Guardiola might end up or who indeed might replace him, though the coming weeks will certainly prove interesting as this saga unfolds.
That’s yer lot from me today, sorry it’s short one, I hate Fridays for news. See you Monday!
Chelsea's Big Blue Bus was back again.
Good morning!
What. A. Match. Try and make sense of the remainder to this paragraph: Barcelona went 1-0 ahead through Sergio Busquets before John Terry got sent off for trying to dead-leg Alexis. Barcelona then doubled their advantage courtesy of Andres Iniesta. Ramires then scored on a breakaway goal to give Chelsea parity on aggregate (2-2) and thus through on away goals. Barcelona spent the second half trying to break Chelsea down and were awarded a penalty, which, shockingly, Lionel Messi missed. Barcelona continued trying to break Chelsea down when in the 90th minute, Fernando Torres, on as a substitute, scored to seal Chelsea’s progression to the Champions League Final.
That’s a whirlwind paragraph to read, and really, where do you start when trying to exlain what happened last night in Camp Nou? Let me start from the beginning…
Chelsea travelled to Barcelona as overwhelming underdogs, despite holding a 1-0 aggregate lead from the first-leg. It’s only natural that a team travelling to Camp Nou are branded as underdogs, purely because they’re playing Barcelona, a team who brag star talent in abundance, such as Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Cesc Fabregas. Barcelona’s Nou Camp pitch is vast and has exposed many teams before now, regardless of their quality. Only two years ago, Barcelona put five past Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid, a fact which only highlights Barcelona’s ability. Rightly so, Barcelona have been branded the best club side to have ever played.
Whilst Barcelona have been guided to unprecedented glory under Pep Guardiola, Chelsea have worked their way through managers how a five year-old would get through new shoes. Since the end of last season, Carlo Ancelotti, Andre Villas Boas and now interim manager Roberto Di Matteo have taken the managerial reigns at Stamford Bridge. Turbulence in the Chelsea dressing room and a lack of continuity has lead to an awful league campaign this year, yet Chelsea had managed to fight their way to a Champions League Semi-Final.
Before the match, everybody in the world knew Chelsea would go to Barcelona and defend their one goal advantage as Barcelona tried to pass their merry way around them. It took just a few seconds for that trend to settle as straight away, Barcelona pushed Chelsea back to the edge of their own area and started to pass in that hypnotising way we have come to know. Chelsea had formed a wall of white as Barcelona tried to look for gaps in a defence resembling concrete.
Thirty-five minutes in, Barcelona were to open the scoring. A Barcelona corner was headed clear by Didier Drogba, yet not far enough and straight away Barcelona were on top of Chelsea and when Issac Cuenca beat his marker, a simple pass across the six yard line was enough to undo Barcelona as Sergio Busquets lurked at the back-post to tap home for 1-0.
Just minutes later, ultimate drama struck the Nou Camp. Alexis Sanchez was standing as still as a lighthouse on the edge of Chelsea’s area when John Terry came behind the Chilean international and inexplicably drove a knee into the back of Alexis, seemingly attempting to dead-leg to speedster. Alexis went down to ground in pain and when the 5th official informed the Referee of what had happened, Terry was rightly awarded a red card.
Despite what we all think of John Terry as a man, we know who he is a football player and that is an ultimate professional who takes pride in his captaincy of Chelsea. Terry has not picked up a yellow card throughout Chelsea’s Champions League campaign this year, so why would he suddenly act in such a way as to damage the chances of his team making the Champions League Final? I can’t begin to explain why Terry did what he did, I just know that what he did was horribly wrong and I hope (though it’s unlikely) Chelsea punish Terry internally for his actions.
Five minutes later, Terry’s indiscretion was punished as Lionel Messi fed Andres Iniesta a killer pass from which the Spanish international would slot past Petr Cech with consummate ease. I don’t mind admitting that at this stage, I considered Chelsea as dead along with the Dinosaurs. Down to ten men, losing 2-0 and behind on aggregate to the best team in the world is a steep mountain to climb.
Amazingly, just two minutes after Iniesta scoring, Chelsea had hope. Frank Lampard’s through-ball gave Ramires time and space in which he chipped an onrushing Victor Valdes to make it 2-1 in the match itself and 2-2 on aggregate, with Chelsea now going through on away goals.
All of this in 45 minutes? From my position on the settee I felt almost dazed by what I was watching. No way in hell should Chelsea be going through on away goals in those circumstances, but down to men they were still battling.
More of the same was required in the second half, though it took just a few minutes for Barcelona’s relentless pressure to conjure up an opportunity when Didier Drogba tripped Cesc Fabregas inside the penalty area.
Drogba hadn’t tripped Fabregas, the Spaniard had dived and had Lionel Messi converted his penalty rather than striking the bar, thus sending Barcelona through to the final, it would have been very amusing to see a clash between little Cesc Fabregas and the hulking figure of Didier Drogba. The world seemed just when Messi hit the crossbar following Fabregas’ dive and once more, Chelsea got back to defending for their lives.
Pass, pass, pass, Barcelona were relentless in their pressure, always closing Chelsea down whenever Chelsea dared take possession for a moment and 73% possession in Barcelona’s favour tells its own story.
Despite Barcelona’s dominance in possession of the ball, the only chances they created were half-cut and there was no moment, Messi hitting the post aside, where you felt Chelsea were in immediate danger.
With three minutes added time, Chelsea were so close to a Champions League Final, they just had to keep Barcelona at bay for a few minutes to reach what had seemed an unlikely final, sitting on a Ramires away goal.
Another Barcelona pass had fallen to a Chelsea shirt and in a desperate hack clear from out of their penalty area, Fernando Torres, on as a substitute for Didier Drogba, was in acres of space, no Barcelona defenders near him as the Spaniard ran clear at goal with only Victor Valdes to beat. After what Torres has suffered in the past year, I was so happy to see Torres round Valdes and score to put Chelsea through against Barcelona.
A minute later, the referee had blown for full-time and Chelsea were rightly jubilant in their celebrations as they had defeated Barcelona in the most epic of Champions League matches.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8HQB0Vp4g0
Many people this morning, particularly of Spanish heritage, will moan that Chelsea’s victory is, ‘one for Chelsea, but not for football’. For me that is pure, 100% rubbish. I said last week that Chelsea needed to play to their strengths in order to win and guess what? They won! It is a results business and those on their moral high horse, spouting off from the lip over how good Barcelona were in possession need to exile themselves to a faraway land.
On my FourFourTwo stats app it gives you a feature showing where players were positioned mostly throughout the match. If you look at Barcelona’s, it shows Xavi, Iniesta, Keita, Fabregas, Alexis, Tello, Messi and Cuenca all grouped together in the middle of the pitch. All of those players were guilty of coming inside and trying to play in non-existant space. No matter how good a team is with the ball, they need variation. When did Barcelona ever stretch the Chelsea defence by going wide? Barcelona never tried anything different and a player Barca desperately needed last night, is Zlatan Ibrahimovic. People say he was a flop at Barca, but I don’t call 16 goals and 7 assists in 29 appearances a ‘flop’, I’d say that is a pretty good return!
With Ibrahimovic, Barcelona could have crossed the ball, having their wingers hug the touchline in an attempt to stretch Chelsea and thus present space to their central players. Ibrahimovic would have given Barcelona the variation they so needed last night. No matter who Barca sent on last night, the player coming on was always the same as the one going off.
For all their greatness, Barcelona are becoming easy to read, examples are Real Madrid at home on Saturday and against AC Milan away. A team needs to be efficient with their passing and if one way fails, try another. Barcelona were trying to sell a dead Horse for ninety minutes last night and never considered the use of a different Nag. All of Barcelona’s 700-plus passes were the same, none of them any different in style to the other and that is their problem when faced with a team like Chelsea: No variation.
As for Chelsea, on the same iPhone app I looked at where their players had been mostly and it shows Chelsea’s players in perfect shape. Chelsea aren’t shown to be scattered, their players are organised into banks, all dedicated to a job and position.
Last night was a fantastic showcase of fight, spirit, determination and professionalism. Chelsea are through to the Champions League Final.
Ivanovic, Terry, Cahill and Cole line up to play Barca.
Good morning!
Yesterday I spoke about Chelsea needing to attack Barcelona and to stay true to themselves. I think what I was trying to get at yesterday, is stay true to your own game, don’t play as another team just to try and beat Barcelona as it won’t work, every team should stick to what they know best when they play Barcelona. I used Arsenal playing attacking football at the Emirates last year as an example of a team playing to their own strengths. Arsenal don’t own a bus to park in front of goal, so they didn’t and won the first leg.
Unlike Arsenal, Chelsea own quite a few buses and were able to successfully stifle Barcelona and prevent space through the middle. Lionel Messi is the greatest dribbler of a ball in the world, but even everybody’s favourite Argentinian ragdoll can’t dribble around six or seven players before being snuffed out.
To say Chelsea parked the bus however, is incredibly short-sighted and doesn’t do justice to what was a fantastic counter-attacking performance from Chelsea, one which shouldreally be a blueprint for England at the European Championships this summer. We can’t match Spain, Holland or Germany with their quality, so why not dig in and play on the counter?
The first half went pretty much as expected, Barcelona began to smother Chelsea with their hypnotising blanket of passing football and their first real chance fell to Chilean striker, Alexis Sanchez. In the eighth minute, Andres Iniesta fed Alexis through and with the ball bouncing and Petr Cech racing forward, Alexis opted for a smart lob which unfortunately for Barcelona, struck the bar and was gleefully hacked away to safety by Gary Cahill.
A quick note about Gary Cahill; I think he really grew in stature last night. Early on I thought Cahill could be in for a long night and his favouring of the long ball was playing right into Barcelona’s hands as they plucked the ball and went back at Chelsea. Once Cahill had gotted that out of his system, he was imperious alongside John Terry. Is that pairing one for the summer?
Cesc Fabregas was the next Barcelona player to be found guilty of missing a glorious opportunity. Messi had broken into the area and reached the byline before having to spin and pass to Iniesta in a better position. Iniesta released a shot on goal which Cech found himself equal to and parried dangerously to a lurking Fabregas. For all the world, I’d have backed my personal favourite player to score from eight yards out with the goal at his mercy. Fortunately for Chelsea, Fabregas was already thinking of how he could celebrate Barcelona’s first goal of the night, lashed at the ball and spun it wide to Alexis, with the attack eventually peetering out.
Fabregas nearly made up for that missed opportunity. In some sort of perversed switching of events, it was Barcelona who found themselves counter-attacking on Chelsea, with Lionel Messi running straight at Chelsea’s defence after Barcelona had ripped Chelsea’s midfield apart. Fabregas made a run to Messi’s left and received a pass from the Argentine to take him through one-on-one (ish, Cesc did have the attentions of other defenders and a looming Petr Cech to deal with) Cech who himself had closed Cesc’s room for manouvre expertly. The only option available to Fabregas was a chip, which he pulled off, lifting the ball over Cech with the outside of his right boot, only to see one-time team-mate Ashley Cole hook Cesc’s chip off of the line.
Barcelona were really increasing the tempo of their game and with half-time approaching, 0-0 and a chance to draw breath must have looked very inviting for Chelsea.
Lionel Messi was in possession on the halfway line, wondering which way to go round Frank Lampard when his hesitance in making his mind up cost him and Lampard stole possession back from Messi. Looking up, Lampard saw Ramires running down the left into acres of space and duly released the energetic Brazilian. Not able to step inside and shoot at goal, Ramires squared to Didier Drogba, who slotted past Victor Valdes from close range to give Chelsea an incredible lead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPX_q4wlfH4
Drogba’s insistance on going down continually as if he were a £15 an hour hooker was beginning to irk most of the world, but you cannot take away the fact that if Drogba is faced with a occassion such as last night, he will perform and is very hard to stop. Drogba’s footwork in several situations was sublime and if his touch had not eluded him in the early stages of the match, Drogba, may well have seen better scoring opportunities.
In the second half, Barcelona carried on the precedent set by the first half, probing Chelsea and looking for small pockets of opportunity. Barcelona never rushed themselves and didn’t create anything dangerous until the final few moments.
Messi’s free-kick late on was flicked by the moppy head of Carles Puyol, sending the ball spinning to Cech’s bottom right-hand corner. Only a sprawling Cech could prevent Barcelona equalising and moments later, Cech had the woodwork to thank for saving Chelsea’s cleansheet, when Pedro came inside and curled a shot on to the base of the post. Sergio Busquets followed up the rebound and had that chance fallen to anyone else, even Victor Valdes, Barcelona would have scored. Like Fabregas in the first half, Busquets was imagining a heroes welcome back in Barcelona and lifted the ball high over the Cech’s crossbar, landing the ball somewhere in Walthamstow.
Like Arsenal last year, Chelsea won by playing to their strengths. Chelsea are traditionally a well-drilled, defensive unit, not an attacking force like Arsenal and whereas Arsenal created just as many chances as Barcelona at the Emirates last season, Chelsea played on the counter and won 1-0. Both systems of playing have to be recognised and celebrated, for the result is the only thing that matters. I will always encourage Barcelona-esque football, but if you can win via other means of playing, then that’s nothing to raise your eyebrows at.
Many will write off Chelsea this morning and understandably so. Barcelona have played thirty matches at home this season and scored 104 goals, conceding merely 16, losing none. If Chelsea manage to score just once however at the Nou Camp, then Barcelona need to score three against Chelsea and that is an extremely difficult task.
Barcelona are still clear favourites to win this tie, but Chelsea must continue to stay true to themselves and produce an even better performance than what they did last night.
That’s me done for today. See you tomorrow!
Morning!
First of all I need to issue an apology in light of no article being posted yesterday. The simple reason as to why there was no article posted, was due to the ‘publish’ button not working, for some reason. That particular button is damn crucial in displaying what we write and since Mat wasn’t able to access WordPress at the time, there was no post.
On a rosier note, here I am now, typing and publishing away like a man possessed, happy days.
First on the chalk board, is this amazing knack that Kenny Dalglish possesses for putting together a bang average squad which plays to the exact standard of ‘average’, endures a season up till which point, is only two points better off than Roy Hodgson’s Liverpool side last season and yet, remarkably, has a Wembley appearance in the bag as Liverpool drew 2-2 with Manchester City, putting Liverpool through 3-2 on aggregate as they prepare to face Cardiff City in the final.
In all likelihood, Liverpool should win that. Luis Suarez will be available and Kenny Dalglish must fancy that his side can beat Cardiff City, regardless of how well the Welsh side is performing in the Championship. Of course, shocks do happen, but it looks extremely unlikely for me and thus, Dalglish will have won a piece of silverware despite his side performing to a mediocre level in the Premiership. It’s quite amazing that a side so average can win a trophy and then have the manager lauded by British media for being a Messiah for Liverpool.
At the start of this season I claimed Liverpool were a side in transition, not quite yet the complete article and I was laughed at, my opinion merely cast aside on to a big pile of rubbish. A side lying seventh in the league is the hallmark of a team trying to find it’s way and they won’t do for some time, despite what an appearance in the Carling Cup Final may tell you.
For Manchester City, was winning the Carling Cup important? Yes, it was indeed. Having emerged victorious in the FA Cup, it is so important Manchester City keep that winning momentum going for as long as possible whilst they establish themselves. Being knocked out of the Champions League and FA Cup so early on was disastrous and yes, there is the Europa League and Premiership title yet to be decided, but that’s not for a while yet. City needed to keep all of their hopes alive to keep the engine going and now, I believe they will face their biggest challenge yet, in full knowledge they only really have the Premiership left to play for.
Don’t be fooled by people saying that being knocked out of these competitions will help City, as it won’t. Being in different tournaments, in various situations, keeps the squad fresh, giving everybody a chance to stay on their toes. A big slog toward the end of the season to decide the title winners won’t benefit City, they would have wanted different tournaments to occupy themselves, to keep their minds working, not have themselves focused on winning one thing as it’s highly stressful knowing it’s win or bust for sixteen games or so.
Moving on to the continent, Barcelona to be precise, and if you want to be exact, then we’re moving to the Nou Camp, where despite more of Jose Mourinho’s efforts, Real Madrid still found themselves beaten by a Barcelona side who at times in the first half, rode their precious luck. Madrid started like a house on fire and could/should have been 3-0 up at half time.
If you don’t take your chances however, Barcelona will always create and more often than not, will put theirs away. First, Lionel Messi ran at the Real Madrid defence, frightening the life out of three defenders who all rushed to tackle Messi, leaving Fabregas and Pedro unmarked to Messi’s left. Messi duly poked the ball to his left, Fabregas left the ball for Pedro, who had a more favourable angle and predictably, Pedro scored to make it 1-0. Minutes later, Dani Alves scored from a half volley after a free-kick had been cleared by Madrid to the edge of their own box. It was an immense goal from Alves and I doubt he’ll score many better than what he did for the remainder of his career.
With Barcelona leading 4-1 on aggregate, Real Madrid must have found themselves punch drunk, but on they battled in the second half. First, Ronaldo pulled a goal back for Madrid having been released down the right by Mesut Ozil. Ronaldo feigned to shoot, committing Pinto to a shot that wasn’t to be, before taking another step and rolling into the net.
Minutes later, Karim Benzema found a ball hoofed to him, which he flicked over Puyol’s big mess of hair, who then slipped (Puyol, not the hair) thus allowing Benzema time to bring the ball down to shoot past Pinto. 2-2 and 4-3 on aggregate meant that if Madrid scored once more in the remaining twenty minutes, then Real Madrid would have secured a win against all the odds.
Sadly, Madrid couldn’t muster another effort on goal. Barcelona were clearly flapping about, ignoring their normal passing game and hurridly passing without a real purpose. Similarly, Real Madrid tried rushing everything, meaning they too were barely able to create.
My question is, now that Real Madrid have once again failed to topple Barcelona, will this become a bit of an obsession for Jose Mourinho? Much in the same way that Brian Clough wanted to beat Leeds United, Mourinho seems obsessed with bringing Barcelona down and if he’s not careful, Mourinho will begin to lose sight of all that’s important and that, would not be a good thing to happen.
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