Max Rushden and co dissect Manchester United’s and Chelsea’s exit from the Champions League and in the last-chance-saloon, Saints go for Mark HughesRate, 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 Jonathan Wilson, Nick Ames and Paolo Bandini to review the midweek Champions League games and round up the big games across the leagues.Starting with Manchester United’s 2-1 defeat to Sevilla at Old Trafford and the Spanish media’s mauling of José Mourinho’s team on the night, the pod discusses Chelsea’s felling at the boot of Messi in their defeat to Barcelona and which of the remaining teams are in the running for the top...
Antonio Conte had reason to curse the absence of a ruthless streak but the grimmer reality is Chelsea have won two games in the knockout stages of this competition since 2012Chelsea could at least seek to console themselves in the immediate aftermath of elimination. They had reason to curse profligacy, and the absence of a ruthless streak which saw the Premier League team strike the woodwork four times over the two legs but succeed in scoring only once. They could always point, too, to Lionel Messi’s brilliance. Antonio Conte described the tie’s decisive performer as “not a top player, but a super, super, super top player”, the kind who crops up once or twice a century. He was the difference....
Barcelona’s injury-plagued €105m French forward scored his first goal for the club against Chelsea, but the Argentinian had the final word as everFive men slammed on the brakes simultaneously. Together they had been running towards Lionel Messi and together they turned and ran away from him again, as if he had flicked a switch, as if he had some kind of control over them. Which, in a way, he did. The moment that led to the second goal on a night which ended with the Camp Nou roaring their team into the quarter-finals, was an encapsulation of the power that ultimately took them there.Messi twice sent shots through the legs of Thibaut Courtois and into the net, in the third...
Following their last-16 defeat by Sevilla, we revisit five of Manchester United’s worst Champions League encountersManchester United’s return to the European Cup was fiercely anticipated – they had been away since 1969. After winning the Cup Winners’ Cup immediately after the return of English clubs to continental competition, in those crazy altruistic and naive days when that was what was done, they were expected to have a suitable go at the Champions League. But in place at the time was a rule limiting the number of foreigners that could be fielded by each club, and though United’s squad was largely British and Irish, the restriction applied to all who were either born outside of England, or were not considered “assimilated”....
It may be only two years since the club were last in Europe’s premier contest but it feels like a watershed as a return looms“They’re all talking about that long run in the dressing room,” Gabriel Paulista said. It had been 14 years, after all. On Saturday, Valencia beat Sevilla 2-0 at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, the first time they had won there since May 2004, back when Pep Guardiola was a midfielder, not a manager, Lionel Messi had not played a senior game and Sergio Ramos was just starting out, a 19-year-old dreaming of Claudio Caniggia. Of the 30 footballers who took to the field that day, he and Dani Alves are the only ones still going and now...