perspective

Whilst the red tops were fawning over Arsenals performance on Weds, read this from the telegraph.


On the one side Arsenal, passing and passing and passing, maintaining across 90 minutes a joyous round of elegant ball sharing, occasionally even breaking into a jog as they did so. And on the other an opposition for once not showing up in North London with the intention of physically bullying Wenger's fragile artistes.

Far from hacking and kicking, Braga desisted from making any tackles at all, spending much of their time standing back and admiring their opponents' ball control.


The Portuguese were such perfect guests it was no wonder the Arsenal fans inquired if it might be possible to play them every week. Indeed, splendidly as Cesc Fabregas, Jack Wilshere and Andrei Arshavin strolled about, it is hard to imagine more insipid opponents.

Even the bunch of impostors masquerading as the Togo national team gave a more vigorous display in Bahrain last week than the Portuguese. But that is what happens in the group matches of the Champions League, a stage of the continent's most venerable competition now so enfeebled as to be almost pointless.

So what exactly did we learn from this week's Champions League encounters? Precious little beyond the revelation that – despite all predictions – Manchester United's second string could actually hold their head up in the Scottish Premier League.

And that Harry Redknapp is as capable of snapping at an innocuous post-match question as any other manager. But then perhaps we should not be surprised.

That is what has happened since all the competitive purpose was removed from the pre-Christmas round of the tournament. As was proved by the majority of group games, the once mighty European Cup in autumn has all the competitive intent of a pre-season friendly.

The problem began when the competition was expanded in 2003. In order to ensure the economic giants of Europe were still involved in things in the post-Christmas knockout, the draw was shamelessly fixed in their interests.

As Gary Lineker intimated with his joke about warm balls during the draw in Geneva last month, there is less gerrymandering in a by-election in Belfast than in the manner in which the group stage is organised, a process entirely designed to protect the rich's interests and let them earn a few quid before the real stuff begins in the new year.

The problem is, by keeping the serious competitors apart and fluffing up the groups with no-hopers, the organisers have utterly undermined the competitive integrity of their product.

Now the possibility of an upset available in either an open draw or a knockout format has been deliberately excised, the chances of a club outside the European cartel breaking through are almost entirely gone.

Come March, the teams still involved will be the usual suspects. This is less a competition than a parade of the same old same old.

Of course, some romantics might argue that the smaller clubs deserve to share in the bounty with a fixture against the giants. Which is a bit like saying I should be gifted the opportunity to act in a Hollywood blockbuster alongside Cate Blanchett.

The problem is, I'm not up to it. Neither are many of the teams Europe's elite faced this week. Their function is solely to provide ersatz competition.

And in Braga's case, they weren't even very good at that. As for us fans, our role appears to be simply to pay for the folly. Perhaps it is time we faced reality. And set our alarm clocks for March.

So far, all theyve really played is a poor Liverpool team and drew 1-1. Allardyce was right abt the influencing refs, as opponents in 3 seperate games have had a man sent off against them, talk about getting a helping hand. Now young Wiltshire is sputing about how there gonna win everything.