LAME UNITED LET LILLE SLIP

 

Image taken from Soccernet

 

Well United came into this match top of the group and Lille bottom and it was at Old Trafford, three points in the bag, surely, even with the side still in injury trouble and Rooney finishing a Champions League suspension.

However it was United that wound up dodging an early bullet when Rio gave Lille player Peter Odemwinge a free run into the box. However, if that was a dodged bullet then Lille went on to dodge a clip's worth of them by half time as no United player seemed capable of putting the ball into the net, comboed with some of the dodgiest passing in United's history, Fergie was surely not in a good mood at half time.

The second half was more of the same, only difference being, Scholes getting sent off for two yellowshalfway through the half and Giggsy breaking his cheekbone(not that the ref noticed).From here on in it looked like it was going to be a case of having to settle for 0-0, though you never can give up hope with United, and we were piling on the pressure on Lille late on but did any players in red have their shooting boot on? No they did not.

United are still top of their group though and with Rooney back we should be able to beating if not trashing Lille when we meet again but performances like this aren't going to help anyone.

Arsenal fans will have room to gloat as a result. Thierry Henry's performance after coming on as a sub meaning that no matter how dodgy the Gunners are looking in the Premiership, they're certainly doing the business in Europe right now, the man with the va-va-voom firing in a beauty of a strike early on before finishing Sparta Prague off at their place with a second. Perfect record so far for Arsene Wenger's crew.

Solid record as well for Liverpool, Djibril Cissse hitting a 20th minute winner in the Scouser's away match against Anderlecht in what was a generally evens match with the local crowd getting a bit moronic at times.

As for Chelsea, well their allstars trashed Real Betis to the tune of 4-0 at Stamford bridge, pretty much securing knockout stage places for both themselves and Liverpool, Drogba, Carvalho, Joe Cole and Crespo hitting the net. Impressive but I still remember United trashing Porto in similar fashion back in the 96/97 quarter finals and that result didn't do us much good against Dortmund in the semis. Still, that group's pretty much over.

Rangers however, are crashing back to Earth quicker than I expected, like the United-Lille game, a home match against Artmedia Bratislava should have been money in the bank but then again, these guys did see off Celtic in the preliminaries. Result, Rangers slip into the UEFA Cup spot.

In the UEFA Cup itself, the group stages were starting up and Bolton still seem to be leaving the dream. A trip to Istanbul to visit Besiktas. The usual Turkish crowd, and an early goal conceded...and Bolton start hammering the Turks and Mexican hotshot Jared Borghetti slams in an equaliser. Might they yet make the knockout stages? Middlesborough managed to get three points out of Zurich against Grasshoppers with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank hitting the winner s they look sorted as well.

Right, back to the Premiership this weeekend.

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