Maple Lions

The Beeb gives the lowdown on the draw for the next phase of the Champions League.

Paul Canniff

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Today Old Trafford witnessed a classic turnaround by the Red Devils while Porto and la Légion Étrangère were locked in an epic paint-drying battle. All English clubs finished at the top of their respective groups to advance to the knockout stage.

Here the final stats from the group stage:

1. Liverpool: 13 pts., GD +6
2. Chelsea: 13 pts., GD +6
3. Manchester United: 12 pts., GD +5
4. Arsenal: 11 pts., GD +4

The Scouse just edge out the Blues for top spot by scoring 11 goals versus Chelsea’s 10. Liverpool was the fourth-highest scoring team in the entire group stage, behind Real Madrid, Lyon and Valencia.

Thus far, Didier Drogba remains the CL’s top-ranked individual scorer with five goals, with Lurch and Louis Saha just behind him with four goals in fourth and seventh position.

Your polling feedback was a tad at variance with reality, but then the wonder of football lies in its capacity to surprise.

Paul Canniff

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New president of the G-14 lobby of football clubs, Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein makes a spirited bid for this year’s C. Montgomery Burns Award for Excellence in the Field of Excellence:

“G-14 is a friend of the game,” he told delegates at the Soccerex football finance seminar in Dubai.

“It is not just for the good and great, the rich and famous. It is clubs that are similar in many respects because of their success, or the money they generate.”

Because, of course, they are just misunderstood legitimate businessmen.

But the real howler comes with Dein’s rationale for the lack of English members in la Légion Étrangère du Londres-Nord:

“As an English club we want to have a base of English players if we can,” he said, adding that Arsenal spent £3m to £4m a year nurturing local talent.

“But if it is not there, we have to buy-in talent from overseas.”

Surely he meant to say, “As a club situated by happenstance in England…”

Paul Canniff

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Here’s how the English sides stand today:

• Liverpool: 13 pts., GD+7
• Chelsea: 10 pts., GD+4
• Arsenal: 10 pts., GD+4
• Manchester United: 9 pts., GD+1

Some points to ponder as the dust settles:

1. While the Scouse are holding their heads high in Europe, is it Raffa’s rotation strategy that is leaving them laid low back home?
2. Has the Special One’s estimation of his audience’s intelligence sunk so low that he actually believed we might pay heed to his latest pre-match puffery? Yup, he was playing for keeps today.
3. The two luckiest men today: Gordon Strachan and Fergie’s bartender.

Paul Canniff 

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Manchester United and Chelsea respectively hold the first and third slots in the latest ESPN World Club 25 rankings; in contrast, Barça and Real Madrid hold down sixth and tenth.

Back in the Champions League, here’s how the English sides are faring as we come up to matchday 5:

1. Chelsea: 10 pts., GD +5
2. Liverpool: 10 pts., GD +5
3. Manchester United: 9 pts., GD +4
4. Arsenal: 7 pts., GD +2

Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United are at the top of their groups, while Arsenal holds second place.

Among the top eight scorers in CL action are Didier Drogba in first, followed by Peter Crouch in fourth and Luis Garcia in eighth.

Paul Canniff

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Last month I took a look at the results half-way in the group stages in contrast to the results of our ongoing poll on English teams in the Champions League. Here’s how things stand today:

1. Chelsea (9 pts., GD +5)
2. Manchester United (9 pts., GD +5)
3. Liverpool (7 pts., GD +2)
4. Arsenal (6 pts., GD +2)

Paul Canniff

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Mid-way through the group stage, here is how the English sides rank, first on points and then goal difference:

1. Chelsea (6 pts., GD +4)
2. Arsenal (6 pts., GD +3)
3. Manchester United (6 pts., GD +2)
4. Liverpool (4 pts., GD +1)

Interestingly, all of the English clubs are top of their respective groups.

Paul Canniff 

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TSN is one tough school of TV love. Winning the Premiership two times in a row and making the CL semis and group of sixteen in the same period just isn’t enough to merit getting on the schedule. Another English team gets that privilege without even approaching those benchmarks in the EPL and the Champions League.

Thank you, TSN and CRTC: how ever could we survive without you?

Paul Canniff

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Just when you thought that the Special One couldn’t get any more petulant,

• Chelsea faces a slog as they tackle Barça in the group stages
• The Red Devils face Celtic
• Team France go head to head against the likes of former CL winners Porto and former UEFA Cup champions CSKA Moscow
• The Scouse take on PSV Eindhoven, Bordeaux, Galatasaray

Only the Blues failed among English sides to make top seed in its group. Full details here.

Paul Canniff

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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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