Burnley’s visit to the Emirates on Sunday will be the last home game for the Arsenal manager, and some of his playersArsène Wenger had outlined the danger in the buildup to the second leg of Arsenal’s Europa League semi-final against Atlético Madrid. “The future of the club is not exactly the same if we qualify for the Champions League or not,” the manager said.The worst-case scenario duly played out. Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat in Madrid condemned them to a 2-1 aggregate loss and meant that for the second season in succession they will miss out on the prestige and revenues of competing in Europe’s elite club competition. Related: Arsenal v Burnley: match preview Continue reading...
Max and co talk Champions League goalfests, the art of defending, Football League permutations and plenty moreRate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Paul MacInnes to look back at the last few days in football, starting with Liverpool securing their spot in the Champions League final despite losing 4-2 in Rome. Continue reading...
There is a sense Real Madrid could be sleepwalking towards a hammering in the Champions League final but Liverpool showed against Roma they cannot be trusted eitherThere was a point on Tuesday night when the thought occurred that this Real Madrid are like Brazil at the 2014 World Cup, a gifted but complacent side who could be sleepwalking towards a hammering.Marcelo’s “We are Real Madrid” comment, and the sense of entitlement it implied, suggested he had learned nothing from the humiliation of Belo Horizonte. But then came Liverpool’s anxiety-riddled progress on Wednesday and the realisation that even after the improvements of the past four months, they still cannot be trusted. Either side could score six in Kiev; both may. Nobody...
Jürgen Klopp’s men did what they had to do by scoring first in a tense semi-final second leg at Roma, where they lost on the night but squeezed into the Champions League finalIt was, of course, never in doubt. Or perhaps only a little in doubt in those moments when Roma pressed and suddenly Liverpool’s defence began to look alarmingly zany, pockets of space opening up as though subject to a sudden buckling of the earth’s crust.Certainly the Champions League has never known anything like this. A 4-2 victory for Roma brought to an end a double-header that has seen 20 goals scored in two semi-finals, capped by a pair of hysterically open second legs. Defending is over. Clean sheets...
Bayern thrashed Zidane’s side 2-2 and there is plenty to suggest a knockout blow can be landed on their elegant glass jawReal Madrid tried so hard to lose this semi-final. Bayern Munich tried so hard to win it. That neither could achieve this apparently shared aim speaks in the first place to Real’s pure champion will and secondly to that nexus of game-management, calamitous Bayern defending and something close to a kind of white-shirted voodoo, the ability to win even while in the process of sputtering and panting like a stalled presidential motorcade.This was a fun, wild, oddly drunken game of football that ended 2-2 at the Bernabéu and 4-3 to Real on aggregate. At the end of which a...