Maple Lions

Though French dreams of conquest unfolded today as they have throughout history, Sol Campbell turned in an outstanding performance that bodes well for England next month.

Paul Canniff 

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Man United’s 4-0 thumping of Charlton keeps them in second place and an automatic spot in the Champions League. Arsenal will finish the season in fourth, dropping Spurs to fifth and the UEFA Cup. And the Mags best Chelsea 1-0 to finish seventh, which gives them an Intertoto Cup spot - not much, perhaps, but more than we could have hoped for when the Souness era mercifully came to an end.

Damian P.

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Arsenal - playing an Englishman! - is through to the Champions League final.

I don’t see how the Spurs-Gunners battle can affect the Geordies’ run for a UEFA Cup place, so I’m kind of torn.  One one hand, an EPL club winning the European championship again would be great for English football.  On the other hand, it’s friggin’ Arsenal.

Damian P.

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Spurs supporter Stephen Pollard extends congratulations to his archrivals for their recent accomplishments:
Congratulations to Arsenal, who by salvaging a draw yesterday against Tottenham have guaranteed a place in next season’s UEFA Cup. That’s quite a performance for a scratch international XI.

No doubt their fans will be licking their lips in anticipation of playing teams of Finnish fisherman and part time Moldovian motor mechanics in the UEFA round robin stage at their new stadium. Enjoy it, Gooners!

Of course, some of us are praying for a shot against Finnish fisherman and Moldovian mechanics…

Damian P.

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Arsene Wenger produced a prize example of Gallic demeanour in his attacks on Martin Jol after today’s North London derby, stomping into the tunnel at the close of play. All because two Arsenal players collided with each other as Spurs advanced to a goal:

Referee Steve Bennett said: “I assessed the situation and saw that no-one was endangered and there were no head injuries, and in that situation the game can carry on.”

As noted elsewhere in the Telegraph:

All that happened was that two Arsenal players, Gilberto Silva and Eboue, collided and fell. While referee Steve Bennett correctly checked they were not seriously injured - both were able to look up - Spurs continued to attack down the left and Edgar Davids tried a low cross. Though Arsenal were understandably thin at the back, the irony is that Kolo Toure got close enough to the ball to impart the subtle deflection that took it into the path of Keane, who sidefooted wide of Jens Lehmann.

Fittingly, Arsenal’s next face Spurs at a new venue sponsored by an airline, from whom the Gooners could draw a worthy lesson. The aviation world has found one way to help avoid collisions: use English as a common working language. So crack those ESL books, mes amis!

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With the Légion Étrangère’s victory over Villareal yesterday making a CL finals appearance a growing possibility, Tottenham is gearing up to fight for its potential CL qualifying spot:

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that the Premier League are backing Tottenham’s case and last month wrote to Uefa on their behalf asking if they would consider changing their rules again.

That request was knocked back but Tottenham are not likely to let the matter rest.

Chairman Daniel Levy and club secretary John Alexander are exploring ways of challenging Uefa’s rules. It is understood that they are even considering legal action as they believe the rules could be viewed as discriminatory under European legislation.

The UEFA rules were pretzeled last year to give the Scousers another run at European glory. It speaks volumes of how Arsenal is viewed that the EPL is willing to stand logic on its head and fight for Spurs in the face of that precedent.

Paul Canniff

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If Arsene Wenger was not taking careful note of yesterday’s CL semi between Barça and AC Milan, then French arrogance has reached new heights:

1. Striker versus Striker

It took one of Europe’s best “goon squads” — Gattuso and Stam — to shut down Ronaldinho and that lasted for only 57 minutes. Who in the Gooners’ defence is going to mark Ronaldhino that tightly? The real duel will be Ronaldinho and Jens Lehmann: Lehmann is at least running in excellent form. Relying on a free-flowing Henry may not be enough to prevail.

2. The Ukrainian Phantom

Jeers for Andriy Shevchenko’s stunt double on the pitch: performed nothing like the real man, wherever he was.

3. Serie A Razzies 06

Yes, it may have won a yellow card for Puyol but Kaka’s dive was a hammy performance of dinner-theatre calibre. He need not count on an encore at the Nou Camp.

The Beautiful Game always has an element of chance but it strikes me as a tall order for AC to pull off a two-goal lead in Barcelona. If the Milanese don’t show up in Paris, Wenger faces the fight of his life.

Paul Canniff

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Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein has been meeting secretly with FIFA president Sepp Blatter to broker a peace with the G14:

The private talks are aimed at finding a breakthrough in the long-running battle between Europe’s most powerful clubs and Fifa, the world game’s governing body, over the international calendar and compensation for use of top players when they are on international duty.

That may help put out the fire on the FIFA front, but what will G14 do if Villareal wins the Champions League this year, and not one of the members of the He-Man UEFA-Haters Club®?

UPDATE

UEFA isn’t swayed.  Said chief executive Lars-Christer Olsson,

“They are creating a smokescreen to hide their ambitions for an alternative competition.”

Paul Canniff

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Details here.

Damian P.

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A priceless observation from Sven-Goran Eriksson in the March 2006 edition of FourFourTwo:

“[I]f you go to Arsenal, you can’t say ‘English football’ because at the moment it’s one English player on the pitch. Maybe you can say still it’s European football, northern European football, southern European football, and South American football.  Maybe.”

Paul Canniff

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