GUNNERS UNSTOPPABLE, BORO FLAT TIRED

 

 

(Images taken from Arsenal.com and MFC.com)

 

When Patrick Viera played for Arsenal he was generally a pain in the backside, now he's with Juventus and on solid form for the Serie A leaders. So, when Juve were drawn to return to Highbury for the Champions League quarter finals the tie was always going to be interesting though tricky, Arsenal may have taken down Real Madrid in thr last round but Juve looked to be a tougher all round side.

It was Arsenal hoever, who made the early moves getting a series of freekicks from some scrabbling Italian defence but Juve's attack soon responded and it was either side's game for a bit, though it was soon Arsenal that were gaining an edge, this time for keeps as the Serie A giants got soaked up and eventually in the 40th minute,Robert Pires tackled Viera before sending the ball to Thierry Henry who fed Cesce Fabregas and the young Spanish midfielder stuffed the ball in the net, Juve never looked like replying before half time.

They never looked like replying fullstop. Kolo Toure took care of most of the Juventus attack singled handed, a hopeless freekick from ex-Chelsea player Adrian Mutu summing up the mess they were fast turning into and in the 68th minute Fabregas took the ball past Gianluigi Buffon to allow Henry to make it two. Game over, the wheels finally coming off when two Juventus players got red carded in the worst performance by an Italian heavyweight I have ever seen.

Elsewhere, Benefica drew 0-0 with Barcelona in the Stadio de Luz, Inter beat Villarreal 2-1 at the San Siro while Lyons drew 0-0 with AC Milan at the Stade le Garland.

Middlesborough's UEFA Cup win over Roma was class, no doubt about that. And in theory, the quarter final tie against Basle looked pretty easy in comparision, the Swiss side gaffered by one-time Spurs manager Christian Gross. However cack Gross may have been on this side of the Channel though, in Swiss football he knows what he's doing. Basle are the reigning Swiss champions and so started out in the Champions League preliminaries. Furthermore, the first leg was at the fortress of St Jakob Park.

Basle turned out to be pretty solid at both ends of the pitch, Boro were generally having to stay in defence to deal with the home side's selection of South Americans and catch the odd attack themselves from which Jimmy Flloyd Hasselbaink picked up a few decent chances. However in the 43rd minute the Argentine midfielder Matias Delgado was able to take advantage of a dodgy pitch to blast in an opener and just before half time David Degan made it two after a pass from the Brazilian Eduardo took out the Boro defence.

In the second half, Steve McLaren's crew kept hammering the home side but depite a series of corners nothing was happening and after a while, Basle were running the show...only for Boro to get a second wind after a reshuffle. One away goal would make things a lot easier for the English side in the second leg but their efforts came to nothing and near the end of the match Basle looked the better bet to score again, though they didn't. Still, it leaves Boro in a pretty big hole for the second leg.

Elsewhere, Rapid drew 1-1 with Steuea in a Bucharest derby at Rapid's Giulesti Stadium, the winner will face whoever comes out of the Basle-Middlesborough tie. In the other two quarter finals, Levski Sofia lost 3-1 to Schalke 04 in the Bulgarian side's Georgi Asperuchov Stadium while Seville hammered Zenit St Petersburg 4-1 in the Estadio Ramon Sanchez.

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