Stifling the life out of football

If we go on like this, we'll have the life strangled out of football.

Chelsea stifled every attempt by Liverpool to bring beauty to the game at Anfield yesterday, but the superbly organised defence of the visitors left no room for manoeuvre. It was a shame that Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard - such an influence on the club - made the mistake that led to the first goal. The second goal - deep into stoppage time - was an irrelevance, as Liverpool pushed forward to try and get the equaliser.

With six across the back and a deep midfield three in front of them, Chelsea - with exceptionally strong players, and superbly organised - were always going to be difficult to break down, and so it proved.

But it is a bit rich for Jose Mourinho to play like this when earlier in the season he accused West Ham (who defended solidly at Stamford Bridge for a 0-0 draw) of 'playing 19th century football', and when Chelsea have virtually unlimited resources from the pockets of Roman Abramovich. I might understand a team with little chance of winning to play by parking the proverbial bus, but when it's a team who has won so many things, with two potential starting elevens better than most teams in the Premier League, it makes me fear for the future of football.

But of course, this was the way Chelsea won the Champions League two years ago. Heaven help us if they manage to do so again this year.

A couple of months ago Everton boss Roberto Martinez accused Chelsea of employing every trick in the book to win games - and they do. So we had the usual time wasting, tiptoeing forward at free-kicks, haranguing of the referee, and similar for the fourth official. Again - from a club with millions? Come on.

Mourinho says that Chelsea deserve respect. Sorry, but actually they do far too many things that deserve loss of respect..

Let's hope they don't continue to win by stifling the life out of football.

Mourinho will never change

What pathetic petulance.

Jose Mourinho excelled himself at the weekend with his 'four-point' press conference at which he allowed no questions, but merely made four points of 'congratulations' after Chelsea's home defeat by Sunderland on Saturday evening.

He congratulated:

1. His players.
2. Sunderland on their win.
3. Referee Mike Dean on his 'unbelievable', 'fantastic' performance.
4. Referee supervisor Mike Riley for 'the way the championship is going.

At least 3 and 4 were obviously sarcastic, but, I suppose, if asked, he could easily deny that and say, 'Listen to what I said...'

Talk about an ungracious, sore loser. It was claimed that Mourinho, on his return to English football this season, had changed. Could we expect a more magnanimous, more gracious Mourinho?

Well, it appears, no, not a bit of it.

Losing your 77-game unbeaten home league record must be annoying, but trying to blame the referee, and - of all things - the referees' supervisor, for Chelsea's home defeat, is verging on embarrassing.

Mind you, we assume he's making some implied reference to Dean's award of a penalty for the foul by Azpilicueta or Jozy Altidore. Maybe not: maybe he's annoyed at Dean's failure to penalise Chelsea's Ramires for a blatant elbow on Sebastian Larsson, only a couple of yards in front of Dean; or the failure of the officials to deal with Chelsea assistant coach Rui Faria in a more comprehensive and timely fashion when he had to be held back from attacking Dean.

It's all rather tiresome.

Chelsea must be favourites

The last couple of weeks have seen a bit of shuffling at the top of the Barclays Premier League, with Chelsea's card popping up at the top of the pack.

We can ignore all Jose Mourinho's nonsense about Chelsea being a "little horse". They are a big club backed by Abramovich's billions and no silly words from Mourinho can disguise that. Chelsea's performance to beat Manchester City at the beginning of last week was excellent and some recent displays by Eden Hazard show him to be a world-class player (and I never use that term lightly).

I make Chelsea favourites for the title.

Manchester City have shown vulnerability recently, with the defeat to Chelsea and a tame 0-0 draw at Norwich City, and, despite some obviously exciting wins, to me they don't seem to have the team resilience that Chelsea possess.

Arsenal have faltered - as I think most people expected them to do - and they are not yet strong enough to win the title. But I wish Arsene Wenger well - he's still one of the best managers there is.

Liverpool remain an outside bet. They are only four points behind leaders Chelsea, and in Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge they have genuine goalscorers. But I don't see them as quite the finished article yet.

As for the rest - Tottenham Hotspur, Everton and Manchester United - they will fight to get into the top four, but I don't think any of them will make it. They may not be keen to land up in the Europa League. So, how do you fight for fourth, but ensure you don't finish fifth?

City can be stopped; exciting games ahead

Manchester City had another big win last night, 5-1 against Tottenham. Are they unstoppable?

Well, no, I don't think so. While they have been scoring for fun (68 goals in 23 league games so far), they do show occasional vulnerability in defence. Whereas teams like Spurs (sorry Spurs fans) are not good enough to hold them at bay, they very top teams (e.g. Chelsea and City's next Champions League opponents Barcelona) are capable of stopping City.

Ironically Chelsea failed to beat West Ham United last night, despite having a record-equalling (while failing to score) count of 39 shots. Jose Mourinho has accused West Ham of playing football from the 19th Century. Well, he's not afraid to vary his playing style, and although he wasn't in charge at the time, didn't Chelsea win the Champions League a couple of years ago by basically trying to stop Bayern Munich from playing?

West Ham boss, Sam Allardyce, was (quite rightly) unrepentant. He said: "He can't take it, can he? He can't take it because we've outwitted him - he just can't cope.

"He can tell me all he wants, I don't care.

"I love to see Chelsea players moaning at the referee, trying to intimidate him, Jose jumping up and down saying we play rubbish football.

"It's brilliant when you get a result against him. Hard luck, Jose."

There are many ways to play this great game of ours, Jose. Deal with it.

So on to the match on Monday night: Manchester City v Chelsea. This will go a long way to indicating whether City really are destined for the League title this year.

Then barely two weeks later the same two teams meet in the FA Cup 5th round. Mouth-watering.

Does a club have to sell its soul to compete?

When Roman Abramovich took over at Chelsea and transformed them into League winners and eventually into European champions with his billions, football in this country was changed forever.

It meant that a club had to have similar billions to compete.

Manchester City, for example, have received that their billions and they won the League and look set to add silverware to their tally again this season.

Now, we all wish for a billionaire sugar daddy to come to our club. Or do we?

As my club, Leeds United, looks at possible investment from Red Bull, I wonder whether we'd be selling our soul.

Examples at Cardiff City and Hull City make you wonder whether life really is greener with all the money.

Fans at Hull City don't want a name change to Hull Tigers, but they like the investment. Fans at Cardiff City hate the colour change from blue to red, weren't happy that Malky Mackay was sacked, and must fear what might happen next, but they must know that they need Mr Tan's money to keep them in the Premier League.

Leeds United fans would not accept a change of club colours to the red of Red Bull, I know for sure. As for a name change to Red Bull Leeds (like Red Bull Salzberg), no thanks - I'd rather stay in the Championship.

But you need billions to compete.

Chelsea fans have been unhappy with Abramovich's eccentric sackings and appointments at various times, but they're never going to call for him to go, are they?

They sold their soul and the rest of us might have to do the same.

Mourinho - graceless as ever as his team salvages a point

Couldn't Jose Mourinho find it within himself to simply admit that his team had been lucky to get their injury-time penalty against West Brom on Saturday?

It was, frankly, never a penalty as Ramires ran into West Brom defender Steven Reid and took the opportunity to "go to ground". Hapless referee Andre Marriner was fooled and awarded the spot kick. This was duly dispatched by Eden Hazard to keep Mourinho's unbeaten home record in the league with Chelsea intact.

Mourinho said after the game: "The penalty came at a moment when it's difficult for the team that is winning to accept. You are waiting for the last minute and the whistle to come, but this one was a penalty. I didn't know, no idea; but on the screen, no doubts."

He also tried to deflect attention away from this poor decision by claiming that his team should have had a free-kick before West Brom's second goal. He said: "It's a free kick just in front of the fourth official [what's that got to do with it?]. It's a big mistake from the referee." Wrong again. Branislav Ivanovic dwelt on the ball and wasn't strong enough to retain it under the challenge of Stephane Sessegnon.

For poor West Brom manager, Steve Clarke (assistant to Mourinho in his previous spell at Chelsea), it was a different viewpoint for the penalty decision: "I'm flabbergasted at the decision. I can't believe he gave it. I saw it at the time. I've been in the game a long time and I knew Ramires was already on the way down before anyone was near him."

Back to Mourinho's comment: it wasn't difficult to accept because of the time of the penalty; it was difficult to accept because it wasn't a penalty - big difference!

A good week for English (and Welsh!) clubs in Europe

It's been a pretty good week for English clubs in Europe.

Manchester City secured qualification with a 5-2 win over CSKA Moscow, but they will probably go through as runners-up to Bayern Munich so the second round draw will need to be kind to them.

Arsenal had a fantastic 1-0 win at Borussia Dortmund, a win that will go a long way to putting them through to the knock-out stages out of a group with three good teams (add Napoli to these two). Aaron Ramsey's excellent scoring record for the season continued with his winning header.

Chelsea have recovered superbly after their shock defeat in the first group match against FC Basel. Their latest win, 3-0 against Shalke '04, pushed them to the brink of qualification.

Manchester United's rather dull 0-0 draw put them top of their group with eight points and another win will see them through. Steady, if unspectacular, progress.

In the Europa Cup, Tottenham Hotspur ensured that they will progress to the second round with a 2-1 win over Sheriff Tiraspol from Moldova. Six wins out of six (including two qualification games) - often with understrength teams - is evidence of a fine European campaign to date.

Wigan Athletic's loss at Rubin Kazan (Russia) leaves them with five points in second place, but work still to do in their final two group games.

Wales's Swansea City got a 1-1 draw at Kuban Krasnodar and they have eight points to date. Second behind Valencia in their group, another two points will certainly see them through (and one, or even none, might be enough!).

All round, an excellent week for teams from the English League in Europe.

Shameful ballboy incident is easily solved

Eden Hazard will probably have re-run the disgraceful incident with the ballboy through his mind many times as he struggled to get to sleep last night. What was he thinking - trying to kick the ball from under the ballboy who was lying on top of it?

Of course Hazard was trying to get the ball back so that play could restart, saving a few precious seconds in Chelsea's quest to overturn a 2-0 deficit and reach the Capital One League Cup Final. With a only a few minutes of the match left, a Chelsea triumph was looking less and less likely, so his gesture was futile, and led to him being sent off, with a suspension to follow. What other repercussions there might be we have yet to see.

What on earth was the ballboy doing, grabbing the ball as it went off for a goal kick to Swansea and then falling to the ground and lying on it to prevent the anxious Hazard from getting it? Sadly - and let's not for one moment try and deny this - he was aping the actions of professional footballers in trying to waste time for his beloved Swansea City, as they - ultimately successfully - tried to win their way into their first major Cup Final. I'm sure the ballboy won't be as ashamed as Hazard of his actions but they will no doubt bring him a certain notoriety and a few more twitter followers. Ten minutes of fame.

The reason for all these shameful actions is because the clock runs when the ball is out of play in football. The solution is easy and I have addressed it before in this blog (http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5550910041293158157#editor/target=post;postID=8598919878957640325). Put a clock on the action; stop it when the ball's out of play.

Then Hazard could smile at the ballboy and trot back leisurely to wait for the goal kick.

And everyone's happy.

Manchester United face stern Champions League test

Real Madrid v Manchester United
AC Milan v Barcelona
Celtic v Juventus

There are some sumptuous ties in the next round of the Champions League.

Manchester United could hardly have a had a harder tie than the Madrid giants over two legs. The English league leaders will have to do it the hard way to get their place in the quarter final.

Barcelona, in scintillating form in the Spanish League, but now with the worries for their coach Tito Vilanova, will find it tough against AC Milan.

Celtic, fantastic achievers from the Scottish League and from a hard group, are rewarded with a tie against Italian league leaders Juventus (seven points clear).

Licking their wounds from an early Champions League exit and a World Club Cup defeat, Europa League qualifiers Chelsea took their frustrations out on Leeds United in the Capital One League Cup quarter-final last night. Their introduction to the Europa League will be a trip to Sparta Prague when the tournament resumes in 2013.

Chelsea's arrogance is staggering

Chelsea are getting irritating.

Their assertion that Mark Clattenberg had racially abused John Obi Mikel was ridiculous from the outset. I've said it before: NO referee - pretty much at any level - would be stupid enough to abuse at all - let alone racially abuse - a player. Perhaps players (and I don't just mean Chelsea's) should not judge other people by their own standards.

It was inevitable that the FA would throw out Chelsea's complaint with no evidence. There was no evidence, because it didn't happen. It is interesting that the FA have decided to charge Mikel himself for actions after the game. It will be interesting to see what comes of those.

Then Chelsea sacked Roberto Di Matteo: a man who last season, when standing in after Chelsea had sacked Andre Villas-Boas, won them the FA Cup and Champions League. Now, because they've lost a couple of games, the tantrums at the top start again. Good grief, if every club acted in this manner, then Sir Alex would still be Mr Alexander Ferguson, scratching a living with Partick Thistle until he retired in 1997. And Arsenal would still be playing at Highbury, having scored only 11 goals so far this season (but conceding only six).

But Chelsea expect instant success. Today, today, TODAY. Why?

Because of the money.

It's only because of the money. There's little history from the last century. Not until the money arrived.

These days, any club needs an almost bottomless pit of cash to be able to compete, so all the clubs have to look to rich overseas magnates to own their clubs. It's a sad trend.

Chelsea's arrogance is staggering as they throw their weight around, complaining about referees' decisions, trumped up accusations about what referees say, and sack managers like they're going out of fashion. And, having had their case against Mark Clattenberg thrown out, they have the audacity to refuse to apologise. Outrageous.

Now the man that all Chelsea fans hate, Rafa Benitez, is the interim manager until the end of the season. That's a laugh: the interim manager will be in charge for more games than the erstwhile permanent manager!

Manager after manager has come and gone. Hired by whom? Someone else? No, the man at the top - that's who.

Perhaps he should take a look at himself and sack himself.

That would be good for English football.

Peter Herbert does the cause no favours

I am distressed and disbelieving of Peter Herbert's stance on the Mark Clattenburg incident.

Mr Herbert is the chairman of the Society of Black Lawyers.

After the Metropolitan Police dropped the investigation into a complaint that Clattenburg used "inappropriate language" towards two Chelsea players, Mr Herbert is claiming that Chelsea and the Football Association have manufactured a "cover-up" for not referring alleged comments by referee Mark Clattenburg to the police. I guess, with such a referral, the Police would have continued with their investigation.

Mr Herbert said to BBC's FiveLive: "It sounds remarkably like the football industry wanted to have this issue swept under the carpet."

But I think Mr Herbert is reading it all wrong. The point is: THERE IS NOTHING TO INVESTIGATE.

Chelsea - let's be charitable - have made a huge mistake. Mark Clattenburg never made any racial comments, not said anything inappropriate. It was all a mistake.

What troubles me is that Mr Herbert seems determined to make something out of nothing. Why? I can't believe he is doing the cause of anti-racism any favours with his aggressive stance.

I do not for one second believe that Mark Clattenburg said anything the like of which he is suspected. I don't believe any referee at (almost) any level would. And to think he would do so in the light of recent eventsis beyond all right-minded thinking.

The inappropriateness in this case has been:
1. Chelsea making the complaint.
2. Anyone believeing it for a second.
3. Mr Herbert perpetuating the wrong.

Let's put it to rest.

Manchester United head the October rankings

On the rankings in the Football Ranking System Manchester United remained on top in October, followed by Chelsea and Manchester City.

Celtic are the highest Scottish team, falling one place to eighth. Dundee United are next Scottish team in 31st.

Rangers continue to fall and have slipped from 33rd to 56th. A good cup run might see them regain a few places.

Leading the Championship teams are Middlesbrough who rose 15 places to 15th.

Truro City are in last (202nd) place for the second month in a row.

Ten-place plus movers elsewhere include:
Nottingham Forest, up from 38 to 27.
Blackpool, down from 18 to 28.
Hull City, up from 43 to 30.
Aberdeen, up from 44 to 34.
Crystal Palace, up from 50 to 37.
Oldham Athletic, up from 88 to 77.
Wycombe Wanderers, down from 96 to 106.
Forfar Athletic, down from 106 to 118.
Hereford United, downfrom 126 to 137.

Clubs should get their own house in order before complaining about officials

Distractions, distractions, smoke and mirrors.

Managers have for years sought to blame everyone else for their woes. Now whole clubs are at it.

Rarely do you get a manager admit that it was his fault or his team are just useless (as fans, we know that most of them are!). It's always somebody else's fault - nearly always the officials'.

Now Chelsea, as a club, are seekinbg to blame the officials for their defeat by Manchester United last weekend.

"It was never a sending-off."

"Hernandez was offside."

Referee Mark Clattenburg used "inappropriate language" to player(s) "containing a racial element".

I didn't hear Chelsea complaining when they were given two offside goals against Wigan Athletic last season or when a ghot "goal" turned the FA Cup semi-final in their favour against Tottenham Hotspur.

Managers and clubs only moan when they lose - have you noticed that? Of course you have.

They're not interested in fairness, only winning.

A referee using "inappropriate language"! He didn't swear, did he? Heaven forbid. Players swear at referees, assistant referees and fourth officials all the time. Well, that's all right, isn't it? No, actually, it's not. If referees are at fault at all, it's because they don't deal properly with players who break this law.

Law 12, sending-off offences (bullet 6):

• using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures.

Hmmm, watch how often that happens in a game. And see how many times it gets punished.

So, before players or clubs start accusing officials of inappropriate behaviour, I think they should get their own house in order.

As a final point: was John Obi Mikel's handling of Mark Clattenburg's arm (as often shown on Sky Sports News) in that game "appropriate"?

Manchester United top the rankings for September

On the rankings in the Football Ranking System Manchester United have regained top spot from Manchester City, who have slipped to fifth with indifferent form of late. Chelsea have jumped from fourth to second, only held back by draws with QPR and Juventus. Everton have kept up their early season form and are in third position.

Inevitably, Celtic head the Scottish challenge, falling one place to seventh. Hearts are next for the Scots in 27th.

Rangers continue to fall and have slipped from 19th to 33rd. from 8th to 19th.

Aston Villa have staged something of a recovery, rising from 29th to 19th and Championship risers Cardiff City jumped from 37th to 23rd.

Biggest fallers were Coventry City, who plummeted from 53rd to 72nd.

Ten-place plus movers elsewhere include:
Leicester City, up from 34 to 24.
Dundee United, down from 18 to 32.
Brighton & Hove Albion, up from 47 to 31.
Kilmarnock, up from 46 to 35.
Wolverhamption Wanderers, up from 49 to 36.
Sheffield Wednesday, down from 31 to 47.
Ipswich Town, down from 40 to 55.
Portsmouth, down from 57 to 70.
Crawley Town, up from 84 to 74.
Morton, up from 91 to 80.
Leyton Orient, up from 92 to 82.
Hamilton Academical, down from 76 to 87.
Port Vale, up from 102 to 92.
Southend United, up from 105 to 95.
Wycombe Wanderers, down from 85 to 96.
Hartlepool United, down from 87 to 98.
Burton Albion, up from 113 to 99.
Aldershot Town, down from 96 to 108.
Oxford United, down from 99 to 113.
Dartford, up from 169 to 157.
Chester, up from 173 to 159.
Oxford City up from 179 to 168.

Ferdinand and Park, please let's move on

Given all that went the week before it almost defied belief that QPR's Anton Ferdinand and captain Ji Sung Park refused to shake the hand of Chelsea captain John Terry before Saturday's game.

What happened to the football brotherhood following the findings of the Enquiry into the Hillsborough disaster of 1989? It lasted less than a few days.

Ferdinand and Park refused to move on and betrayed the continuing grudge against the - pronounced innocent, let's not forget - Terry.

While one migh have some understanding and empathy with Ferdinand, Park's connection is tenuous at best (I guess it must be that he played with Ferdinand's brother Rio at Manchester United before moving to QPR).

QPR boss Mark Hughes mooted the idea of doing away with the pre-match handshake between the teams. But does he suggest the same for the captains - as it was his captain Park who refused to shake Terry's hand before kick-off. What next: do away with any references to sportsmanship altogether? (I guess that might actually be more honest in the game these days.)

Is there no room for forgiveness in these hard hearts? And forgiving an innocent man, remember.

Can we move on?

Early season shapes the football rankings

From the Football Ranking System we see that Manchester City have just about retained top spot from the very in-form early season pace-setters Chelsea. Indeed, a Chelsea win in the UEFA Super Cup tonight might see them take over on top.

The other early season form team Everton have risen from 6th to 4th.

It will be fascinating to see how far Rangers fall now that they are in Scottish League Division Three. Among such lowly opposition they will not score so many points unless they thrash everyone of them, and they're not doing that yet. In August Rangers have fallen  from 8th to 19th.

Conversely, Swansea City have gone the other way, rising from 18th to 9th, and Wigan Athletic have gone from 14th to 7th.

Ten-place plus movers elsewhere include:

• Sheffield Wednesday, up from 55 to 21.
• Leeds United, up from 49 to 36.
• Motherwell, down from 28 to 38.
• Yeovil Town, up from 80 to 69.
• Swindon Town, up from 87 to 71.
• Dundee, down from 62 to 73.
• Preston North End, up from 85 to 74.
• Crawley Town, up from 98 to 84.
• Chesterfield, down from 76 to 86.
• Bradford City, up from 107 to 97.
• Ayr United, down from 88 to 100.
• Southend United, down from 95 to 105.
• Dumbarton, down from 106 to 117.
• Brackley, new in at 157.
• Bradford Park Avenue, new in at 161.
• Woking, up from 177 to 166.
• Dartford, up from 178 to 168.
• Chester, new in at 173.
• Altrincham, down from 165 to 176.
• Oxford City, new in at 179.
• Billericay Town, new in at 184.
• Corby Town, down from 174 to 186.
• AFC Hornhcurch, new in at 190.
• Bromley, down from 189 to 199.

Congratulations to Chelsea

Congratulations to Chelsea on winning the Champions League!

I'm not sure they won it in the greatest style (either by getting past Barcelona or by beating a dominant Bayern Munich on penalties in the final), but there are many ways to win football matches and Chelsea know how to do that. And the Germans can hardly complain about losing a match on penalties, can they!

The Blues stuck doggedly to their task, only attacking when they were behind and equalising from their only corner (to Bayern's 20) over the course of the 120 minutes.

That their talisman Didier Drogba, who one way or another contrived to defeat Barcelona in the semi-final, should score the winning penalty will be extra sweet for the Chelsea fans.

It was inevitable that Chelsea would eventually win the Champions League with Abramovich's millions (or is it billions now?). Maybe he'll decide his job his done and quit, or maybe he'd like to win the same tournament with a bit more style. It certainly won't be with this same core of players as Drogba, Lampard, Terry and Cole (Chelsea supremely solid rocks) are all the wrong side of 30.

The mistake that Andre Villas-Boas made was to try and move them on too quickly. They will move on soon.

Abramovich should certainly give Roberto Di Matteo the manager's job. Surely he must recognise that he's a lucky manager - and a lucky manager is always better than a good one.

Chelsea have ridden their luck in the past few weeks to lift two trophies. Surely Di Matteo cannot be denied the job now.

Why bigger clubs get more decisions in their favour

The offisde goal scored by Branislav Ivanovic against Wigan on Saturday was ridiculous. How the assistant referee could fail to spot the fact that Ivanovic was way offside was a mystery.

It brings up the old question of whether the bigger clubs have more decisions go in their favour.

The answer is yes, and here's why.

Chelsea score an offside goal at home. The crowd cheers, the Wigan players complain. Less trouble to let the goal stand. Chelsea 1-0 Wigan.

Wigan score an offside goal away. The crowd bays for the officials' blood, the Wigan players cheer, the Chelsea players complain. Less trouble to disallow the goal. Chelsea 1-0Wigan.

Chelsea score an offside goal away at Wigan. The crowd is small and makes less complaint. Just as easy to allow the goal as disallow it: Chelsea 1-0 Wigan.

Wigan score an offside goal at home. The crowd is small and makes less noise for the goal. Chelsea's big-name players mob the referee. Just as easy to allow the goal as disallow it: Chelsea 1-0 Wigan.

You can replace Chelsea with any large, well-supported club.

The officials don't mean it; it's not deliberate or malicious; it's not black or white, and it doesn't happen all the time. but it does happen and the end result is that the decisions will favour the bigger club.

Manchester has the Europa League to look forward to

I'm sure a few weeks ago, Manchester was preparing to laugh at London as, at various times both Arsenal and Chelsea appeared unlikely to progress out of the Champions League groups.

Well, the luagh was transferred to London last night as both Manchester clubs failed to progress, while both Chelsea and Arsenal had already won their groups the previous evening.

Oh, woe is Manchester!

City's damage had alrady been done in previous matches - not only losing to both Napoli and Bayern Munich away, but also only drawing with Napoli at home.

United had faltered in earlier matches two - having beaten only Otelul Galati in this group - but even so, a draw in Basel last night would have seen them through. They lost 2-1. The loss of so many strikers to injury is taking its toll, even on a squad as big as Manchester United's.

So, they're both left to concentrate on domestic competition - oh, and the Europa Leagu, of course.

Arsenal and Chelsea edge nearer qualification

Although London's two Champions League entrants only managed draws in this week's group matches, they both sit in a good position in their respective groups.

Arsenal might have expected to win their home game with Marseille, but a 0-0 draw kept them above the French team, and four and five points clear of Borussia Dortmund and Olympiakos respectively. Another win will see the Gunners through to the knock-out stage, though they will, of course, hope to win the group.

Chelsea's 1-1 draw in Genk was treated like a home victory for the Belgian team, whose home supporters' roar at the final whistle will be hard to match anywhere throughout the whole competition. The goal by Jelle Vossen was Genk's first Champions League goal in their four matches. Given the ease of Chelsea's 5-0 home win over Genk only two weeks ago, this was indeed a momentous draw for the Belgian club.

Meanwhile Chelsea's woes continue. Following their 1-0 loss at QPR and 5-3 loss at home to Arsenal (with a 2-1 carling Cup win at Everton sandwiched in between), this draw was hardly the boost they needed. But they do have some relatively easy league games coming up. As with Arsenal, another win will see them qualify.

Work still to be done.