Champions Last 16 1st leg

OhNoYouDidn't

Interesting to see how many are going for Barca 'easily' in Parkhead.

Foolish. Very very foolish.

Man Utd, Liverpool, Blackburn, Milan, Barca, Juve, Valencia, Stuttgart, Benefica and a host of others learnt the lesson not to underestimate the Celtic Park factor.

~Rebel~

Liverpool v Inter Milan - Scoreless Draw or 1-0 win to pool
*******kos v Chelsea - Scoreless draw (chelsea to win comfortably at home)
Roma v Real Madrid - Madrid 2-1
Schalke 04 v FC Porto - Schalke 1-0


Arsenal v AC Milan - Draw
Celtic v Barcelona - Draw
Fenerbahce v Sevilla - Seville by 1 or 2
Lyon v Man Utd - 1-0 United

DSB

Very little faith shown in Chelsea by a few people here, I reckon they'll comfortably win, I've them backed at a -1 handicap.

ShiverinEskimo

DSB wrote: »

Very little faith shown in Chelsea by a few people here, I reckon they'll comfortably win, I've them backed at a -1 handicap.

Most seem to be thinking a draw away and then a stuffing at stamford bridge. A lot of players coming back in - not least drogba, might take a game or two to get back into formation. Especially if paired with Anelka.

DSB

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Most seem to be thinking a draw away and then a stuffing at stamford bridge. A lot of players coming back in - not least drogba, might take a game or two to get back into formation. Especially if paired with Anelka.

I can see a stuffing tonight followed by them relaxing at the Bridge. *******kos are the worst side left in the competition by a long way.

_blank_

Apparently there'll be no JT or Franko tonight.

Nunu

DesF wrote: »

Apparently there'll be no JT or Franko tonight.

and did I hear Anelkas on the bench?

ShiverinEskimo

DesF wrote: »

Apparently there'll be no JT or Franko tonight.

Thought they'd be welcoming them back. Unless grant fancies resting them - I know its Ólympiakos but would have thought he'd still play his strongest side.

Question - Why is Ólympia a bad word? Starred out everywhere. Is it to do with the infamous three lettered company that has no place within these walls?

Mr Alan

yep, the dame street venue is owned by em

_blank_

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Thought they'd be welcoming them back. Unless grant fancies resting them - I know its Ólympiakos but would have thought he'd still play his strongest side.

BBC Rayjo reporting that he's resting them.

Fair enough imo.

Cup Final on Sunday, not the strongest of teams in the CL, he probably reckons he'll come with at least a scoring draw tonight, a win would be a bonus, then do the real stuff in the return leg.

Yeah, I can appreciate his thinking alright.

Sherifu

Mr Alan wrote: »

yep, the dame street venue is owned by em

sucks, hope 0lympiakos are knocked out soon

d22ontour

Liverpool v Inter Milan Away
Olympíakos v Chelsea Home
Roma v Real Madrid Home
Schalke 04 v FC Porto Draw

Arsenal v AC Milan Away
Celtic v Barcelona Draw
Fenerbahce v Sevilla Home
Lyon v Man Utd Away

Pepe LeFrits

Hoping Liverpool get beaten so that Benitez gets the sack, thus ending the rotation debates.

Plus Inter have Paddy.

griffdaddy

3-1 to liverpool, 2 from strikers and 1 from a defender

mike65

---

Reina
Finnan-Carra-Hyypia-Aurelio
Gerrard-Masch-Lucas-Babel

---

Torres-Kuyt.
Subs: Itandje, Riise, Benayoun, Arbeloa, Pennant, Alonso, Crouch
Could be a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 as well.

Inter

Cesar Maicon Cordoba Materazzi Maxwell J.Zanetti Cambiasso Chivu Stankovic
Ibrahimovic Cruz

subs Toldo Burdisso Figo Vieira Maniche Crespo Suazo (yikes)

Mike.

DSB

That team is a bit surprising. Would have thought Alonso was a deadcert, is he not fit? Kuyt is another weird choice ahead of Crouch.

PHB

Alsono still isn't match fit, and has been poor for the last season or two anyway, not surprised to see Lucas in there, who has looked much better when he's been on. Also he will give away possession very little, which will be key in this match.

I'm gona stick my head out here, as I always never understand how Rafa pulls these things off, I'm gona continue to believe that Inter are going to beat Liverpool relatively easily tonight, 2-0, 3-0. That said, I fully expect that prediction to be wrong :P

mike65

Alonso got a bang on the head in the Barnsley game (several stitches I think) and he's still only coming back from his lay-off. Its a risk but Alonso is pretty slow even when fit.

As for Crouch well thats Rafa for you, still at least he is a better bench option than Kuyt if a change is needed.

Mike.

mike65

Shocking wide play from Liverpool, is Babel is most right sided left winger ever?
Inter would clearly take a draw now, Crouch must come on.

Mike.

Raskolnikov

Oh dear, Inter went to sleep for the last two minutes. Can't say I have any sympathy, they defended well but did nothing going forward. Ibrahimovic might as well not have been on the pitch for all he did tonight.

Deserved win for Liverpool.

eirebhoy

Was boards down for the last 2 hours or something? No posts in here.

Roma - Madrid was a good match. Roma played as usual on the break with their 4-2-3-1 system. Real dominated possession. I don't think the away leg will be much different so advantage Roma. They'd take a draw at home most of the time at this stage and try to nick it away from home.

Cannavaro's a gentleman. 3 Real players over complaining to the ref after the final whistle. Cannavaro walks up smiles and shakes his hand.

eirebhoy

Dunphy making stuff up to play down Liverpool's win. Saying Roma won the league last year after their 7-1 defeat in Old Trafford. Eh, no they didn't.

MisterAnarchy

Christ Dunphy is spouting some nonsense now.
Utter garbage and ignorance,no facts.

LuckyLloyd

eirebhoy wrote: »

Cannavaro's a gentleman. 3 Real players over complaining to the ref after the final whistle. Cannavaro walks up smiles and shakes his hand.

"El Bello". The beautiful one.

LuckyLloyd

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Christ Dunphy is spouting some nonsense now.
Utter garbage and ignorance,no facts.

As a Liverpool fan I think it's great!! He's such a troll, so awesome!!

Sherifu

Great win for the pool, it's funny listening to Dunphy.

PHB

I felt the first yellow was harsh, but the 2nd defo deserved. Think he would have went off before the half ended anyway.
Seriously bad reffing from the ref, not just for that, but for pretty much every decision. Sometimes he was making up for his ref, but something he was just awful. Crazy stuff.

Solid from Liverpool, really had to make the most of those 10 men. In an excellent position to go through now.
Chelsea really needed to nick an away goal, gona be tough at the Bridge, but they really should have walked this tie.
Roma do great against Madrid, such crazy teams. Roma can lose constantly to United. Madrid are clear by 5 points at the top of their league. Yet Roma win.

I think tonight just goes to show how different league football is to cup football.

MisterAnarchy

PHB wrote: »

Roma do great against Madrid, such crazy teams. Roma can lose constantly to United. Madrid are clear by 5 points at the top of their league. Yet Roma win.

Roma were absolutely poxed to win.
They had 2 shots in the whole match and they scored both.

Melion

Watching the Chelsea highlights, its nothing to do with this thread but Jimmy Magee is a terrible terrible commentator

eirebhoy

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Roma were absolutely poxed to win.
They had 2 shots in the whole match and they scored both.

That's the way things work when you play on the break. They could have had another 2 if the final ball was just slightly better. 4 Roma players against 2 on both occasions. Hopefully we'll be playing the Roma way under Trap. I love watching Roma play.

Guy:Incognito

Melion wrote: »

Watching the Chelsea highlights, its nothing to do with this thread but Jimmy Magee is a terrible terrible commentator

Him and Houghton really are interchangeable.

mike65

Schalke 1-0 Porto
Liverpool 2-0 Inter Milan
Roma 2-1 Real Madrid
*******kos 0-0 Chelsea

Mike.

Drag00n79

Melion wrote: »

Watching the Chelsea highlights, its nothing to do with this thread but Jimmy Magee is a terrible terrible commentator

I remember him on 'The Premiership' a couple of seasons back after Ronaldo scored a cracker: "Like the cake, he's from Madeira".

eZe^

eirebhoy wrote: »

That's the way things work when you play on the break. They could have had another 2 if the final ball was just slightly better. 4 Roma players against 2 on both occasions. Hopefully we'll be playing the Roma way under Trap. I love watching Roma play.

Ah come on, Roma are a 'nothing team', sher Man Utd beat them 7-1 last season... The other 3 matches they played against Utd are irrelevant really... =P

Did you watch the whole game?? How were Giuly and Totti?

eirebhoy

Totti mainly stayed up front. Didn't drop deep too much. Took a couple of 50-70 yard passes down with ease and one of them led to the 2nd goal. Not 100% fit apparently but he made the difference.

Giuly wasn't great. I haven't see him play really well in years. He was on the fringes really and probably more occupied with Robben. Robben had a decent first half but was doubled/trebled up on in the 2nd half and lost the ball every time he attacked. Drenthe came on to replace him and looks a class act. Terrible dive though to try and win a peno (left the ball and decided to run into Mexes' leg and fall). Raul was guilty of 2 dives when nobody touched him as well.

estebancambias

As eirebhoy said typical Roma, especailly under Spaletti. I still think qualification will be tough though, although well capable of getting an away goal.

LuckyLloyd

Sorry to be off topic, and apologies if the answer is staring me in the face. But why is *******kos censored?

Guy:Incognito

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Sorry to be off topic, and apologies if the answer is staring me in the face. But why is *******kos censored?

I think this needs a sticky at this stage. Without the kos its a venue run by the unmentionable events firm.

leninbenjamin

While they were not doubt the better team i thought Liverpool were fortunate for their win. Kuyt's goal was a bit of a fluke, and i don't think either him or Gerrard would have been given the same amount of space had Materazzi not been sent off. Going forward i thought Pool were poor, there's absolutely no invention in them, there was plenty of opportunity for runs in behind the Inter defence but they really failed to exploit Inter's weaknesses. they really aren't good at the kind of link up play needed to break down a good defence, it was a performance that really illustrated why they are struggling in the league as much as they are i felt.

kida

Shocking performance from the ref in the pool game. The first Materazzi booking was a joke, if anything Torres ran acrosss his path, it wasn't a foul let alone the booking.
As for Torres throwing himself to the ground for the second one, he got a slight tug, had a think about it went on and then threw himself down.

This created the scenario for pool to win as Inter only had one option from then on and nearly did it. That said pools attack had as much cutting edge as a lump of butter and only a lucky deflection saved them from another "we dominated" couldn't score performance.

Sherifu

The amount of people who went for inter surprised me, Liverpool's form in the premiership has been crap but they always up it for the champions league and particularly in Anfield. There was only one team playing to create chances, the only bad thing is they missed so many. Hyypia, Torres, Babel and Crouch all quilty of poor efforts in front of goal. I'm expecting a tense return leg, but if they nick one along the way it should make it easier.

ShiverinEskimo

Does that not piss you off immensely as a pool fan to only have your players 'up for it' when it comes to massive european games?

This is exactly why Benitez has no place at a club with Liverpools ambition. You'll never win the league if it take a visit from Inter Milan to get your players 'up for it'.

Sherifu

It's something that has been true before Benitez came. They perform well in Europe. There have definitely been players that have only shone in European action[i'm looking at you Garcia] Tbh I couldn't care less about the league. As for Benitez, he might survive the season with a good showing in Europe.

patmac

Apart from one post their was a deafening silence all round (including the media) regarding Torres's dive. It's probably because he is English when Liverpool play in Europe. I know Materrazi touched his shoulder but he threw himself to the ground, much worse than say Ronaldo did when he got crucified for being fouled against Middlesborough.
Typical double standards if Torres had done the same in the premiership there would have been an outcry.

_blank_

Is there any video of this online at all?

Sherifu

just after the 1:30 mark, first one now that I see it looks nothing. The second one deserved, his hand is on his shoulder holding him back it's clear he has been done for pace. First one not a yellow, second one is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcypCi4pQuk

_blank_

Right, Torres had Materazzi absolutely raped for pace.

The first yellow was harsh, imo, but Materazzi was a fool for comitting the foul out there in the first place.

He was an even bigger fool for comitting the very same foul, that he had already been booked for, a second time.

I don't think Torres dived.

Mr Alan

of course you don't

_blank_

Mr Alan wrote: »

of course you don't

Ok then. I DO think Torres dived. The cheating fecker.

patmac

Materrazi touched his shoulder of that there is no doubt, but then he flung himself to the ground to get his opponent sent of. People(especially the English media) seem to think this is ok because it's Liverpool v the Italian champions in the CL. But if Torres did in the premiership he'd be one of those cheating bloody foreigners.
'It's ok to it because he one of ours' doesn't mean it's right.