Wednesday's Champions League Review

The remaining English representatives, Arsenal and Manchester City headed into tonight's crunch games on the back of 5 goal displays at the weekend but in different situations in their respective groups. Arsenal playing at home to French Champions and struggler's this season Montpellier, in the knowledge a win and a Schalke win in Gelsenkirchen would send them through to the knockout stages which they have become accustomed under Arsene Wenger. As my primary focus was on the glamour tie of the night, Arsenal  goals from Jack Wilshere and Lukas Podolski in the second half secured their win. Along with Schalke's late win over Olympiakos which confirmed the Gunners place in the draw, who finishes 1st or 2nd in the group will go down to the last matchday when both sides travel away from home to decide the all important seeding for the knock-out round.

Moving onto the glamour tie of the night, Manchester City made 3 changes to their side following the weekend's 5-0 win over Villa. Out went Barry, Clichy and in-form Tevez - in came Dzeko, Kolarov and Zabaleta. The decision to start Dzeko in place of the in-form Tevez was a big decision for Mancini to make, would it prove a good decision or bad? While City made those changes, Real also made changes from their 5 goal display against Bilbao at the weekend. Jose Mourinho brought in Khedira and Di Maria in place of Callejon and Ozil.

Manchester City knew their fate before they kicked off, a win was needed but couldn't have wished for a worse start when ten minutes into the game when City failed to close down Di Maria who put a perfect cross for a striker and a nightmare for a defender. Maicon and Zabaleta were caught out by the quality of the delivery and movement of Benzema, Benzema headed the ball beyond Joe Hart 1-0 to the Spanish Champions. Tactically City went at the start with 3-5-2 or 5-3-2 whichever way you want to look at it, like in past games the system didn't seem to suit the City players for whatever reason and Mancini switched back to his tried and trusted 4-4-2. For the duration of the first 20 minutes, Real Madrid dominated City and easily could have doubled their lead on 13 minutes when Cristiano Ronaldo turning Kompany on the left wing inside out before delivering a perfect cross for Sami Khedira to see the ball ripple the side netting.

At this stage City were failing to close down Real high up the pitch which was contributing to their problems, once Mancini changed the formation they at least formed some sort of foothold after the chances Real had created. I counted within the first 20-25 minutes, Real had 8 shots on goal with 6 on target compared to City's zero. Jose Mourinho's compact and organised side had control of the game all over the pitch at that stage. Although City did have some moments, a great run soon after from Maicon playing a lovely one two with Sergio Aguero, flashed his shot wide of Casillas's goal was their first shot in anger. City created little from open play thereafter but did have a set piece from Kolarov which was flashed wide just after the half an mark. As the half came to a close, City had limited the damage of just conceding one by making the necessary changes to curb Real's domination of the early stages.

Just after the break, City came out with more gusta to take the game to Real. A Maicon cross found at the near post where Aguero flashed his header from a difficult angle into the arms of Casillas. Five minutes into the second half, a great chance fell to David Silva from Dzeko cross which was partially cleared to David Silva by Alvaro Arbeloa. Silva didn't connect with it properly and went straight into the grateful arms of Iker Casillas. Just as the game approached the hour mark, Nasri sent in a delivery from the right hand side, only for Dzeko to be thwarted by the presence of Casillas again eventually leading to a City corner which came to little. As the pressure cranked up the supporters of City started to taunt their former Manchester United foe Cristiano Ronaldo with chants of "you're just a shit Lionel Messi" - in another world Ronaldo would be the guy being talked about in the taunt. It was one of those nights for Ronaldo, quiet by his standards but did have one moment where he hit a fierce shot on 65 mins which Joe Hart spilt, Ronaldo tried to get to the follow up and easily could have had a penalty on another day with the challenge on him.

After Ronaldos effort, City poured forward when again Maicon delivered another cross and again Aguero was denied by Casillas in the Real goal. Mourinho brought on Callejon on for Modric, while Mancini brought on Tevez for Nasri to give City more going forward. As the clocked ticked down, were City going to fashion something or force a mistake to get back on level terms. That moment came on 73 minutes when a knockdown by Dzeko to Aguero fed the ball into the box. Arbeloa on his way back lost his barings and gave a silly penalty, picked up his second yellow card and received his marching orders. Mourinho decided to make a change just as Aguero was stepping up and stepping up he did to send Casillas the wrong way and send the ball into the bottom right hand corner. 1-1 game on now at Etihad, Real made the change off came the goalscorer Benzema and on came young French defender Raphael Varane. Now City looked more confident but still as the game ticked towards the 90 minutes they didn't keep the patience needed to forge an opportunity.

As the full time whistle blew, City again were knocked out of the Champions League. Luckily for them they still have a chance to progress to the Europa League due to Borussia Dortmund's 4-1 win in Amsterdam through goals from Reus, Gotze and Robert Lewandowski with a brace. Both Dortmund and Real progress to the draw for the knockout round, Dortmund have secured top spot and nothing can be done on Madrid's part due to their head to head record. Mancini and co. can take some solace that they can concentrate on retaining their Premier League title but still this will hurt the owners Sheikh Mansour and co.

As mentioned, Arsenal and Schalke qualified from their group just the deciding factor of who finishes importantly top. In Group A, FC Porto had already qualified for the knockout round but PSG secured their passage thanks to a 2-0 victory in Kiev thanks to a brace of goals from Ezequiel Lavezzi, summer signing from Napoli. It couldn't get any better when both sides meet on the final match day in Paris to decide who importantly finishes top. Finally to Group C, Malaga already secured their passage through, all that needed to be decided was in Brussels. Massimo Allegri's AC Milan, having a difficult season travelled to play Anderlecht knowing a victory would secure their passage. It was to be a good night for the Rossoneri, with goals from Stephan El Shaarawy, Pato either side of Anderlecht's Sutter who made the score 2-1 with 12 minutes to go until Pato's injury time third goal.

But this goal deserves a paragraph on its on, the one time Manchester United target even was given a jersey by Alex Ferguson with this name and number 6 while he was an up and coming player from the French version of the Dario Gradi Academy Auxerre. That man was former Auxerre, Roma man Phillpe Mexes, here is a link to the centre back's wonder goal ... Ibra who? http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/unbelievable-philippe-mexes-out-of-this-world-overhead-kick-ac-milan-v-anderlecht/

Not to be outdone, Arsenal's Lukas Podolski literally lived up to the "Podolski Bang" Irish fans will know what I am referring too with this cracker against Montpellier tonight:
http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/golazo-lukas-podolski-arsenal-v-montpellier/

To finish my review during the match build up on Sky, the ticker tape breaking news announced that Chelsea appointed Rafael Benitez as interim manager until the end of the season. I have no bitterness here towards him, he had being out of a job for 2 years next month, with the squad of players that the current European Champions have it was a no brainer for me and a chance had to take. To see some comments from fellow Liverpool supporters that he has somehow tainted his legacy is a load of bullshit, at the end of the day he is a professional wait any longer and he as a manager would have become irrelevant simple as that.

The good thing to come out of all this, a lot of people can move on including the fans and Rafa himself. And now Brendan Rodgers will not have the shadow of the Liverpool European Cup winning manager out of work on the Wirral. It will allow Rodgers work to now go unhindered and stop the high profile Reds in the media with their agenda firmly in the tracks. Tomorrow night at Anfield, there is only one Brendan Rodgers should be run around in unison to let the Irishman know he has the fans backing that he always had since he arrived on that June day last summer.