Champions League tests for English teams

Well, I don't know about anyone else among the football fraternity, but for me, the Champions League really comes alive when the knockout stage arrives. The group phase is a necessary evil I suppose and it sorts the men from the boys, but very rarely does it produce really memorable matches and usually the qualifiers from each group runs in accordance to the script.

Once the knockout phase begins though, every game counts. OK, so the matches up until the final are over two legs, but with away goals coming into play, every stage of every match makes for an absorbing encounter. While the Premier League's frenetic pace makes for plenty of thrills and spills and edge of the seat action, the Champions League produces the champagne football with the technical excellence of all the world's great players on show allied with the tactical nous of the world's top coaches.

And so the action re-commences this week with the last 16 matches first leg ties. For the four English clubs left in the competition, there are 4 intriguing ties in prospect which should promise close fought contests. Sir Alex Ferguson renews his friendly rivalry with Jose Mourinho as Manchester United travel to reigning Italian champions Inter Milan. Meanwhile, Mourinho's old club Chelsea come face to face with their former manager Claudio Ranieri who brings his Juventus team to Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night. Liverpool are also in action on Wednesday night and Rafael Benitez will be returning to his homeland to Real Madrid's Bernabeu Stadium, hoping to improve on their recent stuttering league performances. Completing the English quartet are an Arsenal team likely to field an entirely non-English line-up in their clash at the Emirates Stadium against Roma.

All four of these matches look like being on a knife-edge and for the English teams starting up away from home, Manchester United and Liverpool, their main priority will be to avoid defeat whilst also scoring an away goal. A goalless draw for either team would not be a disaster but it could be a dangerous score because of the away goal rule. A deficit wiith an away goal would not be the worst case scenario, but it would nonetheless be a difficult situation to achieve in the second leg. For Arsenal and Chelsea, their primary objectives should be to keep a clean sheet while getting a win. If Arsenal and Chelsea can win their matches 1-0 or 2-0 it will make it very difficult for their opponents to turn things around in the 2nd leg, especially given that both teams possess players who are perfectly capable of scoring on the counter attack.

Manchester United's battle with Inter Milan promises to be an intriguing match. United have been in excellent form in the Premier League, having won all 8 of their league matches in 2009 and having only conceded one goal in the league since early November. However, Jose Mourinho has an excellent track record in previous matches against Manchester United, having lost just one competitive match in 10 previous encounters against United, including a 3-2 aggregate victory in the last 16 of the competition in 2004 while managing Porto, which saw Mourinho dance down the touchline before going on to win the competition and provide him with his ticket to South West London.

Man for man, there is no question that United have the stronger players and certainly their attacking flair will provide a stern test of Inter's resolve. Inter have struggled to transfer their dominance of Italian football into European competition in recent years and succumbed to Liverpool at this stage of the competition last season. Previous history suggests that when things start to conspire against Inter in Europe, they lose their discipline. Mourinho's arrival is sure, however, to have stiffened things up and he is the master at getting teams up for one-off matches. He also has an astonishing managerial record as a "home" manager having not lost a league match at home since 2002 for either Porto, Chelsea or Inter. Admittedly, he did see Chelsea lose to Barcelona at Stamford Bridge in this competition three years ago, but even so, that is a remarkable record.

Mourinho's teams focus on being well organised, powerful and having a collective work ethic. Inter will certainly need to display all of these attributes against Manchester United if they are to eliminate the reigning champions. They will also need their star man Zlatan Ibrahimovic to come to the party. Ibrahimovic is regarded by some as an enigma and a player who goes missing when it really matters, but his detractors would be extremely myopic to ignore his threat. When he is in the mood, he is a player of outstanding technical quality and Mourinho was no fool in talking up his star striker recently in advance of the United clash. Saying Ibrahimovic was better than Cristiano Ronaldo was an outrageous comment, but you can see the method in Mourinho's madness. He makes Ibrahimovic feel important and at the same time it is reminding that Ibrahimovic that he needs to live up to the billing if his team are going to get through.

As I said earlier, all being equal, United should expect to win this tie over two legs because pound for pound they have better players across the pitch compared to Inter. However, if there is one weakness for United where they could be exposed in the first leg, it could be in defence, strangely enough. United's central defensive partnership of Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic is a big reason for their success of recent times and Vidic has to many observers been the Player of the Year so far this season and the fundamental reason for United's excellent clean sheet run. Vidic, however, will be suspended against Inter due to his red card in the World Club Championship final in December. Meanwhile, his understudy Jonny Evans picked up an injury playing against Blackburn at the weekend and is unlikely to recover in time, while another possible replacement Wes Brown is also currently on the treatment table. This will mean possibly having to play John O' Shea at centre back. This is not an ideal situation at the best of times, but least of all in an important Champions League away match against opponents who are such difficult propositions in their own backyard.

As if Vidic's absence was not enough, United are also likely to miss Gary Neville who is also currently struggling with an injury. This will mean having to play young Brazilian right back Rafael in his place. The young right back is undoubtedly a talent, as demonstrated by his goal against Arsenal in the Premier League earlier in the season, but as with many Brazilian full backs, his instincts are to get forward and sometimes his positional play can be naive when in his own half and he can take the odd risk. Fortunately for Rafael, Inter do not possess a lot of natural width because if they did, you would imagine Mourinho targeting Rafael as the player to test out. On the plus side, United do have Patrice Evra back on the left flank and it will be interesting to see how his contest against Inter's veteran Argentinian right back Javier Zanetti shapes up. Zanetti signed for Inter in 1996, when Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney would still have been at junior school! Goodness knows how many Inter managers Zanetti has seen off during that time.

As important as it is for United's defence to perform and not make any individual errors, I think the midfield battle will play a big part in affecting the outcome of this tie. Inter will play a narrow midfield and will look to congest the centre of the field and deny United the space and time to play their natural passing game. They will also do their best to slow the tempo of the game down, starving United of their oxygen. United play best in Europe when they keep a quick tempo to their game, when opponents successfully slow them down and play the game at their preferred pace, United find it much harder to impose themselves. Mourinho will be all too aware of this and you would expect him to try and double up on Cristiano Ronaldo. But what United need to be wary of is the possibility of Inter playing through them when United lose possession. Michael Carrick has been in excellent form for Manchester United this season and he will need to carry over that level of performance in order to ensure United come out on top in midfield. I expect Ferguson to opt for experience alongside him in the middle of the park with one of Paul Scholes or Ryan Giggs to play alongside him, with either Wayne Rooney or Park Ji-Sung coming deep to give the midfield added support to negate the numbers Inter throw into the middle of the pitch.

The key to this match is that United do not take any kind of deficit into the second leg. If they can get a score draw from the first leg, that would be a satisfactory outcome as Inter are not normally good travellers in European football and I would fully expect United to finish the job at Old Trafford. Give Inter any kind of advantage in the first leg, even a slender one such as a 2-1 win and it plays into Mourinho's hands. He sets his teams up to be counter attacking sides and he will be fully aware that United then need to go chasing goals in the second leg and could leave them exposed to the counter whenever their attacks break down. Nonetheless, I think United's quality should just get them through this tie, although I expect Inter to be a far sterner proposition this time compared to their previous campaigns because Mourinho will squeeze every last drop out of his players and will demand a team performance. I expect United to get through with a one goal aggregate victory.

The pick of the Wednesday night matches comes in the Bernabeu Stadium where Liverpool visit Real Madrid. Real Madrid are having a poor campaign by their own high standards, but they did have the ideal preparation for this match by thrashing Real Betis 6-1 in the Spanish League at weekend, a match in which club legend Raul broke the club's goalscoring record by scoring twice. By contrast, Liverpool approached this match by drawing 1-1 at home to Manchester City, their fourth draw in six league matches. Since Rafael Benitez read out his dossier of Sir Alex Ferguson's outbursts and Manchester United's perceived fortunate decisions, Liverpool's form has taken a hit, although Benitez's own unresolved future must also be a factor as well.

The decision to sell Robbie Keane back to Tottenham in January will also be scrutinised, not least because it has left Liverpool drastically short of experienced forwards. If Fernando Torres is injured for any length of time, Liverpool are short of adequate replacements. They also currently find themselves without Steven Gerrard, although his participation in Madrid is a possibility as he has travelled with the squad. In the past, Liverpool's other players have taken more responsibility when Gerrard has not been available and it is high time those players did so again. Players such as Alonso, Kuyt, Babel and Riera all have their strengths and are capable of affecting a match, but all too often Liverpool are left to rely on Torres and Gerrard's contributions and Jamie Carragher's solidity at the back.

If Benitez and Liverpool's heart is in it though, they are perfectly capable of progressing against Real Madrid. They won in the Nou Camp against Barcelona two seasons ago before Torres had joined Liverpool and the Barcelona side back then was a stronger outfit than the Real Madrid outfit now. The absence of Ruud Van Nistelrooy for the rest of the season also denies Real the services of their most bankable goalscorer and their talisman. Without him, although Real have other players who can hurt Liverpool, I do feel that they will find it hard to establish much of a lead, if any, going into the second leg. Perhaps the one area of danger for Liverpool could be down the flanks where Liverpool's full backs can be caught out of position and the quick feet of Arjen Robben on the left will provide a stiff test.

My main concern if I was in the Liverpool camp would be their ability to score an away goal in the Bernabeu, owing to their current reliance on Fernando Torres. But Liverpool have set themselves up right in away matches in Europe before and although there have been games where they have had few chances, they have been good at taking the chances that fall their way. So long as Real do not score a very early goal, I cannot see them running away with the first leg and I think Liverpool will be in a position where if they are trailing heading into the second leg, they would still fancy their chances of turning things round at Anfield where the home crowd gives them added impetus and where an early Liverpool goal has so often turned the tide. This is not Real's strongest ever team and although they will be keen to take something from a disappointing season, I simply think they are short of the players needed to go any further this year.

Chelsea's recent managerial manoeuvrings have been well documented but the appointment of Guus Hiddink until the end of the season was made to knock a few underperforming players back into shape. And on the evidence of their first match of Hiddink's tenure, this strategy had the desired effect as Chelsea earned a well deserved 1-0 win at in-form Aston Villa, whose Villa Park ground has been something of a bogey ground for the Blues in the past decade. Hiddink has bags of experience and in fact won this competition prior to its Champions League re-branding back in 1988 when he was manager of PSV Eindhoven.

Hiddink has been renowned in both club and international football for his ability to build a team ethic and get teams to function as a collective unit far beyond the value of the sum of the team's parts. Hiddink should not have so much of a problem in this respect when managing Chelsea, as the talents of his players are not so much in doubt as the desire of the experienced, decorated players to achieve more. It was noticeable from watching the Aston Villa-Chelsea match how Chelsea's players showed much more determination and worked that much harder than had been seen throughout Luiz Felipe Scolari's time as Chelsea manager. Didier Drogba was back to his combative best while Nicolas Anelka, often an invisible figure under Scolari, not only expertly took the only goal of the game but worked incredibly hard for his team.

It was also noticeable how much the victory meant to Chelsea's players on Saturday. There had been question marks about the unity in Chelsea's dressing room but the jubilant scenes at the end of the match were shared by everyone, as were the celebrations in the aftermath of Anelka's goals. Scolari's departure and Hiddink's subsequent arrival have certainly instigated this apparent return of a united front within the Chelsea dressing room, but I think the media's writing off of Chelsea has bruised a few fragile egos in the dressing rooms. There are plenty of winners in the Chelsea dressing room and you can only imagine how angry some of the players feel about their regression in the past 17 months since Jose Mourinho left, and particularly since the start of this season. Admittedly, Chelsea's chances of winning the Premier League this season are matchstick thin, but they remain in this competition and the FA Cup and memories of their heartache in the Moscow rain last May will serve as a poignant motivating factor in driving this team onwards and upwards again.

Whether Chelsea can ever expect to hit the heights they did under Jose Mourinho is very questionable, but they certainly have experienced campaigners still at their disposal who with some fire in their belly can be a force to be reckoned with in European football. To prevail against Juventus though, they have to take a first leg advantage to Turin for the second leg and preferably without conceding a goal. Chelsea have lost their air of invincibility at Stamford Bridge and their lack of width has meant that they have struggled to deal with opponents who visit the Bridge, pack midfield and park the bus. In the interim period, I don't think Hiddink has any quick fix solutions to Chelsea's lack of options in wide areas, other than to play Anelka out wide, with Kalou stationed on the right. In time though, an alternative could be to play a more narrow midfield in a diamond formation, once the much missed Michael Essien returns from injury.

Juventus should not be under-estimated, as they are after all a team that won home and away against Real Madrid in the group phase and also removed the reigning UEFA Cup holders Zenit St Petersburg from this competition. Claudio Ranieri's return to Stamford Bridge is sure to be emotional as the Italian is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve and he will also be keen to prove his managerial credentials are worthy. The "Grand Old Lady" of Italian football are still finding their feet again after their demotion to Serie B in 2006 for their part in the match fixing scandal that swept Italy, but they have retained the services of the world's top goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and also their veteran playmakers/forwards Pavel Nedved and Alessandro Del Piero. Much like Ryan Giggs, these two players have kept themselves in good shape and have enjoyed a fine Indian summer to their career over the past year. If Chelsea can keep these stalwarts quiet though, I think that is half the battle negotiated.

Hiddink is renowned as a master of tacticians while Ranieri's "Tinkerman" continues to haunt him and so if the match gets bogged down into a tight, tactical affair then you would expect Hiddink's nous to shade things in his favour. Chelsea may need to be patient in breaking Juventus down at Stamford Bridge and must be careful not to panic if they don't score early on and must guard against giving Juventus set pieces, as this has been a situation where Chelsea have been particularly vulnerable this season. However, if Chelsea keep a clean sheet at the Bridge, I think they will be in the driving seat in the second leg, even allowing for Chelsea's recent patchy away form in Champions League combat. I expect a narrow Chelsea victory on aggregate.

Arsenal's task against Roma has been made harder in recent times due to a series of injuries to key players, not least the prolonged absence of Cesc Fabregas. Eduardo recently returned from his long lay-off after his leg break at Birmingham last season, only to then pull a hamstring in his first game back where he scored twice and now is on the sidelines again, while the mercurial Emmanuel Adebayor also finds himself on the sidelines. They did sign Russian playmaker Andrei Arshavin during the January transfer window but he will be ineligible for Champions League participation due to his appearances for Zenit St Petersburg during the group phase.

Because of the depleted nature of the Arsenal team and because they have some inexperienced players in defensive and midfield positions, it is difficult to gauge quite how Arsenal will play against Roma. Arsenal have had the better of a number of their recent encounters in the league but have been profligate in front of goal. Such wastefulness will be punished by Roma, who having made a dreadful start to the season, have picked up well in the last three months. They ended up winning up their Champions League group ahead of Chelsea, and have also climbed the table in Serie A since Christmas. Their coach Spaletti has a well established system of play and the nucleus of his team has been at the club for a few seasons now, with long serving forward Francesco Totti remaining as important to his team as he ever was.

As well as defeating Chelsea in the group stage, Roma have had several encounters against Manchester United in the past couple of seasons. They were defeated 3-0 on aggregate in the quarter-finals by the Red Devils last season and memorably lost 7-1 at Old Trafford the previous season. Arsenal will need to be particularly mindful of the threat that eminates from Roma's midfield runners. They are a team that use possession well and who also have plenty of balance in midfield. Roma's system generally sees Totti as the player who plays furthest forward with support then coming from deep from Roma's midfielders. Arsenal's lack of an established holding midfielder could be a problem when Roma find themselves breaking with possession.

Arsenal did win in Italy at this corresponding stage last season with a famous victory in the San Siro against AC Milan, having drawn 0-0 in the first leg. A 0-0 draw in the first leg this time would not be a disaster, but a win by one or two would certainly be significantly more preferable. Arsenal are capable of winning at the Emirates and if they score early and then dominate, a win by 2 or 3 goals is not out of the question, as Roma have been known to capitulate before. But Arsenal's problem is going to be preventing a Roma away goal. Roma had opportunities to score at Old Trafford last season and didn't take them and also missed a penalty, but Arsenal's defence is nowhere near as settled as United's. Arsene Wenger is still trying to find the right defensive combination and his defence can be susceptible to powerful players. Roma's Vucinic could make an impact in this respect. I expect Roma to score at the Emirates and it is for this reason that I expect Roma to advance against an Arsenal team shy of some of its star players. The absence of Fabregas and Adebayor will be noticeable, even allowing for Adebayor's poor attitude this season. Adebayor's physical play would have asked questions of Roma's centre backs, whereas I feel Nicklas Bendtner is less likely to. I see an aggregate victory for Roma.

In the other Champions League ties, I expect Barcelona to see off a talented Lyon side. Lyon are difficult to beat in their own backyard and Karim Benzema is a real star in the making, but I expect Barcelona's all-stars to get a draw at least in France and finish the job with aplomb in Catalonia. I expect Barcelona to be joined by fellow Spaniards Atletico Madrid in the last 8, who should establish enough of a lead at home to see off the 2004 winners Porto. Completing the Spanish contingent should be Villarreal, whose defensive solidity should prove too strong for Panathinaikos to break down. Completing the quarter final line-up, in my humble opinion, will be Bayern Munich in what should be a close tie against Cristiano Ronaldo's former employers, Sporting Lisbon. Lisbon might take a slender lead into the second leg but with Bayern's forwards, I always fancy them to score a goal and I expect them to complete victory in Bavaria.

MY TIPS FOR THE QUARTER-FINALS
Manchester United
Liverpool
Chelsea
Roma
Barcelona
Atletico Madrid
Villarreal
Bayern Munich