 Arsenal can win the Champions League if we avoid the English sides
It is they and Barcelona who can beat us, the rest we can handle
It wasn’t that long ago that the press was pondering Arsenal’s downfall if we didn’t qualify for the Champions League group phase and since some Arsenal fans were worrying if we’d knock out Celtic to reach it. I had no worries – we were semi finalists last season and Celtic are no great shakes. Here we are, a few weeks later and we’ve won our group with a game to spare.
Each season we hope we might win the Champions League and, so far, each season we don’t manage it. So what have we learnt? On the surface we have learnt that we have an excellent brand of football, with some very good players and are generally good enough to beat most teams. So how near are we to winning the competition? A very interesting factor here is that we have in the last five years or so beaten some very strong clubs, who were expected to beat us: Juventus, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, AC Milan. Our combination of foreign players with high-level technique allied with the determined attitude demanded of English clubs is too much for foreign sides. They also have good technique but we are used to playing wholeheartedly throughout a match, while most European sides play in bursts, so we manage to get the better of them. So what is stopping us from winning the Champions League outright? The answer is stunningly basic: in the last five seasons or so we have largely been knocked out by the other English sides or the best European side out there, Barcelona. We can beat the rest, but United and Chelsea are more ruthless than us and Barcelona can out-finesse us. Liverpool are not necessarily better than us but they are very skanky and skanked their way past us, as frankly so did Barcelona in some respects. In the 2006 final I am convinced we would have beaten them 11v11. United, Chelsea and Liverpool may be foes that we know, but they also happen to be amongst the very best clubs in Europe. If we were a team based on the continent we would fear them – just because we know them doesn’t lessen the danger. In recent seasons, we have fallen to Chelsea, Barca, Liverpool and United and largely beaten all others. Liverpool are now out of this season’s competition, one less to deal with. If we are able to avoid United, Chelsea or Barca along the way now – by way of the draws and their results in the meantime - we have nothing to fear from the other sides. The outlook is very simple: if Arsenal can avoid United, Chelsea or Barca this season we can finally win the Champions League.
GOT A COMMENT OR OPINION ON THIS ARTICLE? DISCUSS IT FURTHER HERE
Posted 27th Nov 2009
|
.jpg)
