Reds, Real, Rubin & rubbish
Tuesday 03 November 2009 03:02
MATCHDAY FOUR FIXTURES Tuesday Nov 3: APOEL v Porto , Atlético Madrid v Chelsea , Bayern München v Bordeaux , Besiktas v VfL Wolfsburg , Maccabi Haifa v Juventus , Manchester United v CSKA Moskva , AC Milan v Real Madrid , Olympique Marseille v Zürich Wednesday Nov 4: Arsenal v AZ , Dynamo Kyiv v Inter Milan ,Fiorentina v Debreceni VSC , Olympique Lyon v Liverpool , Rubin Kazan v Barcelona , Sevilla v VfB Stuttgart , Standard Liège v Olympiakos Piraeus , Unirea Urziceni v Rangers
This week’s UEFA Champions League action – as seen by the papers, some remote parts of the interweb, and Duran Duran...
Reds not dead
As Liverpool fans fly to Lyon for what the media is dubbing a “must win” game – technically, as we’ll see later, it’s a “must draw” – the only crumbs of comfort offered them by the media are the news that Pepe Reina is to sign a new contract and a thoughtful piece by Matt Dickinson in The Times pointing out the idiocy of replacing Rafa Benitez at this point.
I have heard no clamour, not even a whisper, for the return of King Kenny among Liverpool fans as Dickinson suggests.
But he makes a persuasive case against such a sentimental move.
Even Matt cannot resist damning Rafa with faint praise, acknowledging his “maddening bloody-mindedness” and “duff deals”.
Yes, Rafa has made some “duff deals” but he has also signed Reina, Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres, Glen Johnson and Javier Mascherano.
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About Paul Simpson
Paul Simpson has edited
Champions, the official UEFA Champions League magazine, since its launch in 2004. Before that, he launched
FourFourTwo as editor in 1994, wrote the acclaimed
Rough Guide To Elvis and formulated the influential HR theory that everyone in your office has an equivalent character in
Dad's Army.
He supports Nuneaton Borough and Jimmy Bloomfield's Leicester City.