Arsenal barely holding on

Not too many people expected Arsenal to get anything out of Spanish giants Barcelona today, but the gunners have managed to get a tie. The downfall now is that barca could effectively win the two legged tie simply by holding the tie next week. If they were an Italian team we'd expect them to do just that. But Barcelona are not a defensive team and they will come out to play just as they did at the Emirates. That is their weakness. No one Will expect Arsenal to do anything, but the young gunners have a chance to haunt the holders at the nou camp.

If Arsenal are to win, they will have to do it without their talismanic skipper. Fabregas is suspended from the game and Arshavin and Gallas are both injured. The time has come for the likes of Samir Nasri and Song to pull together and show the spanish what the gunners are all about. It is time to put to bed the ghost of a final lost.
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Manchester United suffers defeat as Lyon wins part one of french battle!

It's not everyday that mighty Manchester United loses a game, especially in the Champions League where they seemed to have reigned supreme in past few years. The fact that they lost today is not a symbol of their downfall (they could still win the return leg at Old Trafford) but for the neutrals this defeat is a great result. Though United are great enough to go to the final, it would be great to see a team like Bayern make a return to it's greater heights.

On another note, it is great to see Lyon flexing it's muscles once more. They are too good a team to not succeed in the champions league all these years. The one sad note is that unless Lyon loses the return leg, it means that Bordeaux have proven once more to be nothing but pretenders. Lyon have been the best team in France for a few years now, and though Bordeaux has emerged from the dark ages, it is still clear who the strongest and more favored french side is.
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Jack Wilshere and the future

This week Bolton manager Owen Coyle stated that he would like to keep Jack Wilshere for another season. On the surface it sounds like a great idea for the English youngster to get more experience, the problem lies with the players that would surround him. Though I am inclined to believe that Coyle has good intentions, Bolton are a team of battering rams. Unless he does a complete reshaping of his squad then Wilshere is at a risk of becoming a battering ram and ultimately not be able to fit into the Arsenal squad. If I was advising Wenger I would dissuade him from letting Jack go back for another year.
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Know what you have

There are several things that make a good manager in this wonderful game of ours, and one of those things is knowing what sort of players you have.

Everyone with any sort of knowledge knows that Sebastian Giovinco is a great player. He might be slight in frame but he's quick with the ball at his feet and he's got great ball skills. I can't figure out why the managers at Juventus won't use him. First Ferrara ignored him and now the new manager Zacheroni is not too fond of him. What they don't realize is that playing him might be to their benefit. It's nearly the same situation over at Liverpool where Benitez is so cautious that he doesn't play Aquilani. Why buy a player like that if you're not going to play him? Same thing happened with Gourcuff at Milan. These managers need to become better at assessing the players they have, especially the Italian managers.
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