Its that time of the year and we have once again made it to the last 16. I do love a CL draw, its very exciting to know that your team is among the last 16 of such a competition. The draw is on at 10am tomorrow. We could face the following teams.... please log in to view this image My best to worst draw: 1. Malaga 2. PSG 3. Juventus 4. Borussia Dortmund 5. Bayern Munich 6. Barcelona
Actual possibilities of draw : 1. Barcelona 2. Barcelona 3. Barcelona 4. Barcelona 5. Barcelona 6. Barcelona
Dear Santa Please can I have Malaga for christmas. I have been a good boy all year and it's only coz of the ****s on here that I have used swear words. I promise to brush my teeth before I go to bed every night and pray to an imaginary God if that will help ? Love Piskie
Could work to our advantage, with the away goal. I sometimes think the pressure is on the home side in the second leg. But of course it all depends on the result from the first leg
Would switch Juve and Dortmund. Even though Dortmund are exceptional, we have done well against them recently. Their style hasn't changed too much. Nevertheless, we only have a decent chance against Malaga and PSG.
They have improved ten fold in the CL from the time we played them. They clearly needed the experience in that first year to improve and they have. This time, I can see Dortmund ripping us to shreds.
Oh they probably would rip us to shreds, just I think we have a slightly better chance against them than Juve. We're more likely to score against Dortmund but also more likely to get trounced 4-0. You can see I'm not very optimistic lol.
The CL has gone to another level this year for me. The amount of quality teams in this competition is unreal. I have no doubts that this really is the best football competition in the world now, forget the world cup and the European Championship.
Momentum is massive for me, any team going into these games on a roll has a chance. These games are due to be played middle Feb, we have 9 league games and a transfer window to get out of the way before we next play CL football, we could have new players we could have lost players, we could have 27/27 and the feeling around place could be a million miles from where it has been recently, or we could be sitting in 10th behind Norwich and Swansea and praying we simply avoid a hiding. Seriously, the next 7 weeks are everything, draw Barca when we're on a roll and you never know, draw them when we're in the doldrums and we're staring at an aggregate 7-1 hiding....
I agree with this 100% Its not just the English and Spanish teams this year. For the first time in a while there's 7-8 'Genuine' contenders. Dortmund - They play football like the old Arsenal. Lewandowski, Goetze, Hummels - the spine of this team is very strong. Bayern Munich - Solid at the back and score a **** load of goals. Mario Gomez, Robben and Ribery front three is particularly impressive. Shaktar - This team is full of TOP class footballers. They have also grown up together and are a very tight unit. Completely dismantled Chelsea. Juventus - Solid at the back and quality on the ball. Hard to beat. Barcelona - Messi, Iniesta, Xavi - need we say more? Real Madrid - Mourinho's teams are always hard to beat. United - As always will be a force. Then there's PSG, Milan etc.. Its looking pretty tasty.
To be honest it doesn't make much difference who we face in the next round, as the majority of teams are either better or on par with us at the moment. Even after the 5-2 win against Reading, I saw some deficiencies at the back (left-side mainly). Also we are yet to decide Walcott's future (which will affect dressing room harmony) and if any tactical or formational changes that need to be made in case of this. I need to see Arsenal settle down and go on some run before reassessing our chances of progression. As it stands, we will need a bit of luck to get past the next round. Against any top Euro side, we stand little chance of progression as it stands right now.