reading list: paul wilson on the champions league draw

oh, paul wilson. i've been a guardian and observer reader since i was a kid, compulsively snatching the papers at breakfast before my parents could get a look, just to catch up on the latest sports news, even if it meant being late for school. even when my parents put a stop to that by ceasing the morning delivery of the paper, i would invariably grab them in the evening instead. so it is fair to say i'm rather partial to both, but there are two people that i really dislike within their sports pages - richard williams, an awful awful man who exists seemingly to merely repeat ridiculously ill-informed, knee-jerk judgements and then contradict himself, and paul wilson. paul wilson is somehow the chief football correspondant of the observer, yet operates solely in platitudes, jumping on whichever subject has been most popular during the previous week and setting forth stunningly banal opinions in the 2000 blandest words possible. he is utterly pointless, yet continues to dominate their football coverage.

this week is no different, and there are only two reasons that i am mentioning this - firstly, it gives me an opportunity to moan about paul wilson, and secondly, it touches on a subject that i was going to write about anyway, the champions league draw.

the obvious thing to note at first is that this was a truly fantastic draw, pulling the competition away from the interminable boredom of the group stage with 5 really good games. man united take on inter, liverpool got real madrid, chelsea will play juventus, arsenal were pitted against roma whilst barca drew lyon. i fully expect all 4 english teams to go through; mr wilson disagrees.

i don't necessarily have a problem with this opinion. none of the "big four" have really hit the heights this season - man united have been a little inconsistent, suffering from the need to accomodate dimitar berbatov and a variety of absences in midfield, chelsea have been pretty flat for a while since the league became wise to their predictability, liverpool just aren't a great football team and arsenal... well, i think we know what i think there. this is all fine. none are in great form, all could lose against opposition that is, at the very least, competent. i understand that. but what i object to is the type of nonsense that paul wilson published this morning.

some of it isn't so bad. his contention is that liverpool have the best chance at winning; given the way their team is able to grind out results in the competition it isn't so hard to believe. he begins to talk about the other three very reasonably:

The other three have been struggling for form of late. Chelsea peaked in mid-October and have been barely recognisable since. Arsenal have already lost five times in the League

it is clear both of these teams have struggled for form. but what is this i see on the horizon?

...anyone who witnessed Manchester United at full stretch in narrowly beating Hull and Sunderland at home in recent weeks will not be totally confident of their ability to break down a team managed by José Mourinho.

what?! manchester united destroyed the hull defence with ease, breaching boaz myhill's goal 4 times and running riot; the game was closer than it should have been thanks to a bit of poor defending and loss of composure at the end, but united were a comfortable class above. the sunderland game is a similarly laughable example of ferguson's team struggling to break someone down, as i think their final shot count was somewhere between 20 and 30, including 5 or so easy chances that in most games would have been converted. sunderland seemed to be defending with about 11 men in their own box for the last 20 minutes, and were only beaten by a single goal essentially due to sheer good fortune. replay the game 10 times and on 9 of those occasions united score at least 3 times.

but wait! there is worse.

Inter, Juventus, Roma and Real are still great clubs with proud histories. And if there's one thing guaranteed to get up anyone's nose, it is arrogant English supporters going around telling anyone who will listen that this year we are aiming for all four semi-finalists.

this is sports writing of the very worst order. were inter, juventus, roma and real not all similarly great clubs with similarly proud histories last season? yet for some reason, this magic spell didn't save them from exiting the competition prior to the group stage! how could this be? surely their lack of comparable talent was compensated by some sort of historic, highlander-esque desire, bred in every player to don the shirt, to make their club the dominant force in all of the world?

well, no. leeds were a great club with a proud tradition, yet today languish 9th in league one and have sacked gary macallister after losing to the mk dons, a club who have been in existance less than 10 years. 10 years! surely the proud tradition of leeds should have carried them through against this upstart rabble? and what of ac milan, scrambling around at fratton park to find a last minute equaliser against a team that have absolutely no proud tradition at all?

this is, of course, nonsense. history and previous results have absolutely no bearing on future outcomes. so what if team a has gone 30 years without beating team b in europe? the players, the coaches, maybe even the owners have all probably changed, so what does that matter? if real madrid have the most champions league trophies ever, does that make their current squad any less imbalanced or their owner any less deranged? just because jose mourinho fluked a victory over alex ferguson with his deplorable porto side, it means he is expected to beat ferguson's teams whenever they now play in europe?

ultimately, this leads me to why i think the english teams will win out: they have better players and better managers, and teams with better players and better managers tend to beat those with inferior players and inferior managers.

real madrid are a mess, the squad imbalanced (the first team squad only has one quality winger, and absolutely no one to play on the right), and now decimated by injuries. even giving ramos the benefit of the doubt, this is not a team to be feared, and their league record demonstrates that. liverpool will no doubt feast on their inability to play fluent football, using alonso and mascherano to dominate the midfield and thereby allowing gerrard and torres to attack a shaky defence. my guess is that liverpool win very convincingly.

inter are a decent team, but struggled to get out of their group and there remain big question marks over the performances during the mourinho era - even though results have been good, for the most part, rarely have inter excelled; manchester united simply are a better team, and as berbatov comes into form, as he surely will, you expect them to be playing even better by the time this tie comes around.

juventus are a capable outfit, one that has been gradually improving during the last 2 months, winning physical battles in midfield through the excellent form of momo sissoko and introducing a little more verve with the emergence of a couple of youngsters, most notably paolo de ceglie on the left. they should be respected, rather than feared: chelsea possess even greater physicality and the assumed return of drogba should improve their play immeasurably, given that it will likely necessitate the removal of the painfully average and one-dimensional nicolas anelka.

roma are the weakest of all four of these sides, and although they posses a talented first xi, including francesco totti (perhaps the most bizarrely underrated footballer of the last 10 years, a truly brilliant player), daniele de rossi & alberto aquilani, this isn't a team that has had a good season, and they currently languish mid-table in a reasonably mediocre serie a. they nevertheless may be reasonably hopefuly of springing a surprise against an arsenal team struggling for consistency. nevertheless, arsenal remain demonstrably a better side, and given that they will expect a handful of players back by the time of the tie, and maybe even one or two purchases in january, it is highly likely they will simply be too much for a limited roma line-up.

so that is why i expect the english sides to win: they are better. instead, professional writer paul wilson feels it is more appropriate to submit an assessment such as this:

While Italian teams may be able to cope with being favourites for everything, one instinctively feels we English are better at being underdogs.

whilst of course handily forgetting that manchester united and chelsea were favourites to win the champions league for the entirety of the competition. this is surely the crux - in european club football, english teams struggled in general not because they were any more or less favoured, or that italian or spanish clubs believed in themselves more, but because they were inferior. those teams that won the european cups of the 1990s won because they possessed superior players & coaches, and played better football, in comparison to their english relations. now, with the influx of money into the premier league, this has changed, and the italian clubs, in particular, are disadvantaged in all of those categories. this is why they should be expected to lose, not because of anything else.

keane leaves sunderland

(yeah, taken the picture straight from bbc - far too good to be limited to only one site.)

so keano has left. last year, the general consensus on roy keane the manager seemed to be overwhelmingly positive. he had propelled a sunderland side in relative disarray back to the premier league, managing to secure top-flight football with only the mildest of relegation battles, something that is greeted almost unanimously today as major success for newly promoted teams (and probably rightly so). his predilection for championship footballers and manchester united reserves was acknowledged with a certain suspicion, but that suspicion was one casually brushed aside by relative success. however, as soon as the defeats started to pile up this season he was placed under increased scrutiny, and tactical foibles such as starting 18 year old martyn waghorn against chelsea, at stamford bridge, suddenly weren't so easy to excuse.

losing 1-4 to bolton, at the stadium of light, was obviously the final straw. keane appears to be a man so single-minded & driven by the pursuit of success that failure on this scale - such an appalling winless run - was always going to cause massive problems for him. but more than that, the lack of success began to puncture that aura he has maintained since emerging into the national spotlight in 1993 - always right, always the best, never questioned, keane commanded more respect than any of his peers. it was this aura that meant people assumed success and were then perhaps too quick to fete his achievements, and gave him the legitimacy & clout to run the club how he liked, despite his lack of experience.

ultimately, however, this manifested itself in profound hubris - keane's iron will meant that various scoundrels and trouble-makers were recruited, their rehabilitation guaranteed by the presence of such a footballing sage. except it didn't work, and big money became wasted money as the trouble-makers (including that notorious spitter, el-hadji diouf, and the man that produced a transfer request from his sock 10 minutes after the end of the premiership season, pascal chimbonda) were relegated to the bench, the experiment well and truly aborted.

and the transfer policy. oh, the transfer policy. the mistakes are legion and the path recounting them well-trodden, but it bears repeating. keane had full control of the transfer policy, and funds were never short. but what was achieved? the squad was bloated beyond all sense, with outrageously unwise purchases such as michael chopra (£5m after 22 goals in a championship season), greg halford (£3.5m for 8 mind-bogglingly bad appearances), rade prica (£2m for a single goal in six appearances), paul mcshane (positively one of the worst defenders to grace the premier league since william prunier pulled on that united shirt), anton ferdinand (£9m. £9m. £9m.), david healy (£1.2m for a single appearance) and russell anderson (£1m for a single appearance in which he promptly gave away a penalty). all considered, sunderland currently own 10 senior strikers. you've got successes - djibril cisse and a matchfit kenwyne jones have the potential to be an effective good mid-table premier league strike partnership, combining pace & lots of power (although they both could do with a bit of work on their finishing). craig gordon looked overpriced at £9m, but has been a moderate success and at his age may yet prove a canny long-term signing, whilst keiran richardson - who has forever appeared to be consigned to a slight career, stuck between positions without the pace to play on the wing or the distribution and strength to man the middle - has actually looked good when not injured. beyond that, the squad is a bit of a wasteland, and at a cost of £70m that is a rather damning indictment of the keane era.

ultimately, given that level of spend, you imagine that the performance of the side over the last two years would generally get the manager fired. but keane hasn't been fired, and that he even has the luxury to resign is due to the fact he is roy keane, the best central midfielder the premiership has ever seen. this means he will undoubdtedly get another good job - just look at bryan robson, who was allowed to fail at both middlesbrough and bradford before finally outstaying his welcome at sheffield united; the nostalgia and misplaced confidence that propels inexperienced playing legends into jobs above their heads too early in their managerial careers often will last for longer than a single position. history will judge his reign a failure, despite the occasional hints of greater ability and no matter how much we want to believe in the power of roy keane. this can be unarguable - more has to be expected of any manager given such freedom and backing - but like so many before him, he was promoted to a role far beyond his capabilities.

but where next for keane? he may be best served by re-acquianting himself with alex ferguson. fergie long ago learnt the importance of delegation, a skill that the solitary, control-obsessed keane appears to lack. there has been no one but keane calling the shots at sunderland, no one assisting him on transfer policy, no one in the media to help, no one providing the tactical nous. for a character like keane, plunged into managing a premier league club quite patently before he was ready, this seems to have been unsustainable - the mistakes piled up, compounding the pressure, and eventually the job became altogether too much. but as ferguson has aged, he has remained the unquestioned leader of the club whilst accomodating complimentary assistants below to relieve the pressure on him in various areas. never the greatest tactician, ferguson turned over much of that side to carlos quieroz who ultimately revitalised the club and helped pioneer a revolutionary attacking system. if keane is to sustain a career, or at least get back on track, he clearly needs better people around him from which to learn.

oh dear oh dear: chelsea fall apart against arsenal

i think it was about 58 minutes into yesterday afternoon's game and, with arsenal struggling to make any real inroads despite trailing by a goal, it was at this point i turned to my brother and said "arsenal should take off van persie - he's been anonymous and they should stick a man on mikel instead". i'm sure you can imagine how the next 5 minutes unfolded.

it was that kind of day at stamford bridge yesterday - unexpected and completely bewildering. chelsea were in charge despite creating little of note, their main attacking avenues were trying to play kalou and anelka in through the middle, despite the pace of the arsenal back four making that proposition rather difficult. the goal came about through mostly because samir nasri singularly failed to track bosingwa's run, allowing the portuguese into an incredibly dangerous position; his cross was exceptional, djorou's response entirely forgiveable. both before and after the opener, arsenal were out of form and out of shape, listlessly giving away the ball, suffering from denilson's ineptitude on the right (ineptitude that was generally not his fault), a poor performance from fabregas and the anonymity of their strikeforce. samir nasri buzzed around to little effect and alex song was frequently struggling to contain the multitude of midfield runners he had to contend with. and whilst the gunners carved out a couple of half-chances, it appeared to be another bad afternoon for arsene wenger.

but it was a match turned on its head by sheer chance: a clearly offside robin van persie slammed home an equaliser after an hour gone, and when the same player rifled in a second after emmanuel adebayor made his first contribution of the game, soaring higher than anyone in a blue shirt to nod the ball down, the match was transformed; it was the type of five minute spell that only the most hardened of arsenal-hater could begrudge.

however, this period, and what followed, cannot be dismissed as insignificant, for it provides valuable insight into the potential fortunes of both sides over the coming months. for chelsea the evidence was damning, for arsenal it hopefully put things into proper perspective.

for chelsea, we cannot overlook that this was nearly a comfortable victory. arsenal weren't very good up until van persie scored, and without that good fortune one suspects it may have continued in the vein of the first hour. however, what that crazy five minutes did was to reveal the flaws that i alluded to on friday - namely the lack of attacking options on the bench. when reduced to chasing the game, scolari could only muster florent malouda (whose contribution consisted of getting caught offside and blasting a free kick over the bar) and miroslav stoch, a debutant who was most notable for how blindingly quick his small legs moved when he ran. that just won't do, especially when deco is suffering a quite obvious dip in form (i'm sure someone predicted that amongst the universal praise that was raining down in august...).

but more than that, scolari was worryingly at fault after the goals. in perhaps a more lucid moment, when he took mikel off i turned to my brother and questioned the substitution; by my reckoning, the nigerian was having an excellent game, doing more than any other chelsea player to break up the play and also playing the crucial role of instigator, starting the chelsea attacks from defense. this is precisely why i felt arsenal should take off van persie, as it would allow them to station a man to stifle mikel, as gerrard did for liverpool, in a game when chelsea were even more ineffectual. but by removing mikel himself, scolari opened up his side to arsenal's counter-attacking, and suddenly the gunners were looking more dangerous than at any point previously. it also damaged chelsea's passing rhythm, and with the subsitutes ineffectual, the match petered out with very few chances for the home side.

tellingly, peter kenyon came out this morning to say that there would be no purchases during january, and that didier drogba would be going nowhere. but this isn't really good enough for a side with pretensions of league and european glory - the way their attack has spluttered against liverpool and now arsenal suggests a true deficiency within the squad, and with the blueprint to beat the current iteration of the side established by rafa benetiz, chelsea need to have more tactical variation in order to progress.

for arsenal and their manager, the match must have provided supreme comfort. not necessarily because it was a particularly good performance, or that wenger's tactical and personnel decisions were particularly validated, but because the manner of victory should put things into proper perspective. simply put, it is the manner of robin van persie's goals - two truly excellent strikes - that seemed to underline the excellence within wenger's squad, an excellence that separates them from the rest of the league in the fight for 4th place. and for all of the predictable talk of team vs individual talent, the importance of the unit, i just feel that there is too much talent in that arsenal team for them to finish outside of the top 4, and not enough elsewhere to compensate for that. you would hope this has the dual role of both galvanising the team internally and finally ceasing the incessant media sniping that has accompanied the side up until this point; as a result, it will probably do more for the latter than the victory over united, which was easily dismissed by media pundits as classic arsenal, out-footballing their opponents in a match that quite easily could've ended up 4-4. this was a match that featured a solitary chelsea shot on target and a rearguard breached largely because of misfortune.

therefore, if there was anything further to take from what was overall a reasonably poor arsenal performance with the ball, it probably revolves around the performance of the back four. clichy and sagna were predictably excellent, with clichy becoming more and more dangerous going forward as the match progressed and sagna performing with the unassuming solidity of a man who has quietly progressed to be the best right-back in the premier league in a startling short time frame. moreover, it was an excellent performance from johan djorou, own goal excused, who looked exceedingly comfortable for the entire game, whilst william gallas alongside him was also thoroughly solid, using his pace to negate anelka. obviously any critique of arsenal's defending needs to be put in proper context, and there is a good chance that had they been up against a rampaging didier drogba, as they were in last year's fixture, they would have been similarly dominated physically. however, djorou has certainly progressed from the slightly callow, error-prone version of previous seasons to at least appear an upgrade over the woeful mickael silvestre (i've given up any sort of balance here... the man just isn't good enough) and the potentially past-it/malaria subdued (delete as appropriate) kolo toure. certainly, his emergence allows the re-emergence of the intriguing toure-to-midfield rumour that was rife about 6 months ago, at least when the ivorian returns from injury.

finally, and without wanting to labour the point, the match still presented an indictment of wenger's transfer policy. wenger's failure to buy another wide player in the summer (when he needed at least one more, but instead merely chose to swap hleb for nasri) meant that denilson was on the flank - and if the brazilian wasn't stationed out there, lacking the ability to penetrate either on the ball or off it, you could imagine abou diaby playing the role similarly poorly. this contributed to arsenal's lack of fluidity, as without the willing outlet walcott has become ball retention suffered. arsenal probably would've been better off giving wilshere a game on the right than denilson, whose main contribution was to perform the most blatant, incompetent, dive you will see all season. in addition, it was another patchy game for alex song, who has also yet to prove he can truly fit within arsenal's system.

ultimately, then, it wasn't a great game. it was two teams that broadly struggled to fashion chances, one nervy and slightly rudderless, the other simply lacking the ability, but in the way it burst into life, further demolishing the myth of chelsea whilst similarly altering perceptions of arsenal's future, it may just have been the most important one yet.