Well now we know the lay of the land after the first round of group games, shall we see how our much-loved Premier League teams fared? I'm not pulling any punches on this one, so it might be a better read if you're a neutral.
Abysmal Arsenal Pay Depth Price
Fellow Arsenal supporters must be cursing the hierarchy for not replacing Vermaelen. What a costly decision that may yet prove to be. So you sell a world class defender and bring in a striker. Don't get me wrong, Arsenal certainly needed a striker and the more I think about it, the more I love the idea that Danny Welbeck is now a part of this Arsenal team, but it's a joke that there hasn't been more money spent on another defender. Even an idiot knows that you need at least six fit defenders in a squad that can play across the back at any one time. Wenger needs to realise that Arsenal players get injured. A lot. I don't know whether that's down to poor physios and doctors, but the phrase 'injury crisis' is usually applied in the context of the Arsenal squad.
Arsenal played dreadfully, by far and away the worst performance I've seen this season. A depleted Dortmund team could, and probably should, have scored so many more goals. I went to Signal Iduna Park last season and the experience was epic, the match incredible and Arsenal were so good under those circumstances that I ran out of superlatives. Appalling is about right for the Arsenal players this time around. For a man who turns up for only one game in three, Jack Wilshere seems to be getting a long run in the team. His performance against City notwithstanding, he is not the player to take this team forward. I believe that he cannot play alongside Ramsay, they don't complement each other enough. On the days when they click, they are incredible, but do you want that to happen once a season? No, there has to be some consistency. Arsenal will qualify, but second again and get knocked out in the next round yet again.
Bulgaria. Really?
I was at the unfortunate end of a conversation yesterday with two deluded Liverpool fans who were convinced that, because their team managed to win thanks to an injury time penalty, they were definitely going to win the CL. Are you fucking kidding me? What is it with Liverpool supporters and this competition? As soon as you've won one match, you've miraculously won the whole competition. Get real. The return of the Champion's League to Anfield was nothing less of a reminder of how much of an accident it was last season to make the top four.
Matched, at every level, by a nothing team from Bulgaria, Brendan Rodgers proved to everyone just how out of depth he is on this stage. It took sheer luck for them to take three points from the tie. A last gasp penalty and the Kop went wild. Well done, you are aware you have Real Madrid in your group right? Last season's winners, the most expensively assembled in history and Cristiano Ronaldo. Liverpool will end up getting walked over if they continue to play like that. Sorry guys, I just can't see them qualifying, let alone getting to the final.
City Ruined
So it took a last minute goal to settle this match as well. In fact, Man City is the only team out of the four who I'm not going to slate. A decent performance undone by a moment they'd rather forget. Bayern Munich are a tough team. Jerome Boateng is an incredible talent. Simply put, City had a good game against some hard competition and deserved a point from the encounter. I hate to say it, but I think they've got a shot at a quarter final place and I believe they'll get the furthest out of the English teams. It's a good squad but, come March, they'll be right in the thick of a Premiership battle and I don't think they'll let that slip. The fact they don't get a second paragraph is the highest praise I can give them at this moment in time.
Drogba Proves Me Right
This is why Chelsea signed Didier Drogba right? Not just to spend the season as a backup to the, quite frankly, incredible Diego Costa but to turn up on the biggest stage of them all and put in a performance that Chelsea fans will remember as vividly as they do his winning penalty all those years ago at the end of his second spell. I'll admit, I was wrong about Costa, he looks like a bargain now! However, Drogba now looks like a £100,000 a week mistake. He looked so out of his depth and really uncomfortable up against Schalke, a team Chelsea met last season as well.
This team looks like the finished article without him. Fabregas showing again what the Premier League has been missing all these years by pulling the strings in midfield, making Lampard look like a real has-been. Costa, though I questioned his abilities before the beginning of the season, a top quality striker with seven goals in his first four games. Terry and Cahill at the back giving the old fashioned English centre back a place in football once more. Chelsea looked at sea against mediocre German opposition and they paid the price. I'm not pinning the team performance on Drogba, but it's difficult for the players on the pitch knowing there's someone who's been hero worshipped on the bench who is no longer at his best and it's tricky for him to justify the amazing praise thrust upon him because he's crap now.
Only one man ever came back and made the difference. Henry, Chance, Goal.
Summary
No English team will win the Champion's League this season.
