Never Mind the Bolsheviks : Arsenal

Shakhtar post Arsenal's video nasties

Mark Gilbey — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 10:42:00 GMT

‘Ark at him.

Mircea Lucescu wasn’t a happy chappie at Shakhtar Donetsk’s open training session ahead of their Vyscha Liga fixture with Vorskla Poltava, even if it was his 200th league match in charge of the Ukrainian champions.

The Romanian was still smarting from that spanking Arsenal gave them last Tuesday. Mostly, this anger was directed at the Norwegian referee in charge that night, Svein Oddvar Moen.

“We have analysed the game," bellowed Lucescu. "Naturally, we did not play our best match. But it is easy to be in Arsenal’s shoes when one is gifted with two goals. Their opener was 100% offside with the Arsenal player more than a yard ahead.”

"Also there should have been no penalty when they scored their third."

"I have enough experience in Europe to be surprised with such refereeing. If games involving English teams are officiated by Scandinavians, the refs' sympathies are always going to be on their side. They share the same Anglo-Saxon culture. Many of their referees are even educated in England."

He continued: “I can not say that Arsenal created so many scoring opportunities. Five goals conceded – it is certainly a lot to us. But again, to some extent, it all started with two serious errors by the referee.

"I am sure the return leg will be quite different,'' said the Romanian. ''I would like our supporters to learn - and put the same kind of pressure on the officials as the Gunners' fans did when that penalty against us was awarded.

"At international level it is very important and this kind of pressure is everywhere. This refers to the big clubs such as FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Arsenal… The teams of eastern Europe should strive towards this way of supporting and our fans should help us with that.”

Put bluntly, Shakhtar simply didn’t perform at the Emirates, but at least attribute being cr*p to something vaguely plausible, Mircea.

He had a readymade excuse in three of his best players missing through injury: Dmytro Chygrynskyy and Douglas Costa were both only fit for the bench, while Fernandinho had his leg broken last month.

NMTB was disappointed. They didn’t do themselves justice and this defeat mentally affected the players, judging by how they transpired to create so few chances during their 1-0 win against Vorskla.

Hopefully they’ll give FC Poltava of Druha Liga a damn good hiding in the cup this week, which should go some way to restoring that confidence. After that, they’ve got just one game – and quite a big one, too – against Juande Ramos’ fourth-placed Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk before Arsene Wenger’s lot arrive in eastern Ukraine.

The open training session wasn’t the end of the matter though, and Mister broached the subject again after the 153rd league victory of his six-year reign.

“We will never get the help which the big clubs receive in European competitions. First, he [the referee] counted the goal from a clear offside and then, before conceding the third goal from the penalty spot, he did not take into account, while awarding a penalty-kick, that both players were pushing each other in the box.

"Moreover, Rosicky hit Kucher in the face with his elbow, Wilshere brutally played against Hübschman. This is an important issue. We posted the visuals on our website - I hope UEFA will turn its attention to what is happening.

"I would also not like Scandinavian referees to officiate matches involving English teams. Perhaps they should be Italians, Spaniards and others. Some might say that I am overcritical concerning the referees’ issue but when such situations arise, one starts wondering.”

See the clipreel on Shakhtar's site

What has appeared on Shakhtar’s website is a video feature entitled: “Arsenal-Shakhtar: moments, thought-provoking,” which is the eagerly awaited sequel to “Deadly moments from the match: Obolon-Shakhtar” that documented the club’s last defeat in September.

See THAT clipreel on Shakhtar's site

In fairness, Fernandinho did have his leg broken in their 1-0 defeat, but nobody died.

Shakhtar can’t play that badly twice, not with a sell-out crowd at the Donbass intimidating the ref, anyway. They haven’t lost at home since 2008 and the last time Arsene Wenger brought his team to Donetsk they were on the end of 3-0 tonking, even if that was a decade ago.

A score draw is the most likely outcome. Another Shakhtar defeat, though, and we might be seeing Mircea post another one of his video nasties.

10 things Chelsea should know about Spartak

Mark Gilbey — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:32:00 GMT

Valery Karpin probably didn’t expect tonight’s game to be a table-top clash. Both sides on six points, the winner will almost certainly qualify for the next round. For the loser? Well, there are three more games, so never mind.
That’s the problem with the group stages, there’s a lack of urgency and suspense. Can’t we just go back to a conventional knockout format? And make it just for, er, champions? Pretty please, UEFA?

1) Alex is injured (not that one, although Chelsea’s Alex is injured too)
Thank goodness that is the only Alex-based confusion we’ll endure tonight. We could have had all kind of problems there. Alex #1, Chelsea’s hammer-footed Brazilian, is out, while Alex #2, Spartak’s Brazilian playmaker, tore a thigh muscle during Friday’s 3-0 win over Alania Vladikavkaz.

Rest assured, Chelsea: Alex #1's absence won’t be felt anywhere near as much Alex #2, who is one of the Russian Premier League’s most creative midfielders.

2) Welliton is brilliant
The 23-year-old Brazilian was injured on matchday two against MSK Zilina, and only returned to the first team against Alania last week. Predictably, he managed a goal. Russia’s top scorer is due one in the Champions League: despite racking up a rather impressive 16 in 18 matches in the Premier League, he hasn’t found the net in the continental competition yet.

Like Didier Drogba, he scored back-to-back hat-tricks in August, and his form has sparked a debate about whether or not he should swap his Brazilian passport for a Russian one and play for the national team.

3) Spartak play on an artificial pitch
The build-up to this match has all been about John Terry, and for once the focus hasn’t been on where the England defender has put his willy.

You probably don’t need this blog to tell you that it was at the Luzhniki Stadion that John Terry slipped on his bottom during a penalty shootout in the 2008 Champions League final against Manchester United. It has been all over the news. NMTB’s mum doesn’t know what a goal is, but such has been the focus on the centre-back and the pitch, that she could probably regale you with the minutiae of that match’s conclusion.

The plastic pitch is football’s great leveller (or best excuse if you lose), and Carlo Ancelotti has got his excuses in early. At least we’re not forecast rain tonight in Moscow. It will be mighty cold, though.

4) Aiden McGeady will show English fans what all the fuss is about
The Irish wingman sustained a shin injury on international duty and hasn’t featured since returning to the Russian capital, but will play tonight.

McGeady has put in some superb performances since his big-money move from Celtic and it could be a ding-dong battle on that side of the pitch with Ashley Cole, who could be in a for a busy night. Fingers crossed fans in England will see why Scottish and Irish fans are raving about him.

5) Spartak haven't conceded in the group
Defence isn't exactly the strongest part of Spartak’s game, so Karpin is probably quite pleased that Drogba and Frank Lampard didn’t travel to Moscow.

The Krasnye-Belye have conceded 27 goals in 23 Premier League games, but somehow kept Marseille at bay in the Stade Velodrome. A third clean sheet and Spartak are as good as through; Ibson, used to shield the back four, will be key to them getting something out of tonight.

6) Jano Ananidze is one for the future
The young Georgian sub is one to look out for. The tricky winger is just 18, but has forced his way into advertising hoarding-destroying slaphead Temuri Ketsbaia’s Georgia team, and made his debut at just 16.

Ananidze can play on either flank or just off the striker, and he has the pace to worry defences. He’s also got an eye for goal. Like every promising youngster on the continent, the "next Georgi Kinkladze" has been linked with a move to Arsenal, even though Karpin has said he’ll reject bids for the youngster until he turns 20. Ananidze, not Karpin.

7) Spartak have only lost once in 10 games
Early on in the season, it looked like Karpin would be kicked out by the Spartak hierarchy – which would’ve been a bid awkward, considering he sits on the board as well.

But Karpin has turned it round and a run of just one defeat in the last 10 matches has pushed Spartak up to fourth in the Premier League, and they’ve won six of the last seven games.

8) Spartak’s last game was brought forward to help them
Spartak’s fixture against Alania Vladikavkaz was moved to Friday night to give the Muscovites an extra day to prepare for this evening’s match. They won 3-0: Brazilians Ari and Alex scored in the first half before another, Welliton, made it three just after the break, leaving Spartak nine points off CSKA Moskva in the third and final Champions League spot.

9) The Luzhniki will be sold out
This fixture is big news out east. Over 77,000 tickets have been sold so far. Spartak are one of Russia’s best supported teams, while Roman Abramovich’s Blues are followed closely in his homeland. It also means a huge security operation is the order of the day in the Russian capital, and almost 3,000 police officers will be present in case it all kicks off.

10) They think Carlo Ancelotti likes tea
The Russian media have been a rather hospitable lot to the big teams in recent years. Sovetsky Sport presented Jose Mourinho with a trench coat before Inter Milan’s visit last season (he didn’t wear it on the touchline mind, the ungrateful git).

NMTB can’t recall Carlo Ancelotti being a renowned tea drinker, but the newspaper gave the Italian a rather swanky samovar, which should cater to all his hot beverage-making needs. This blog reckons it will never be used in the Ancelotti household, and it’ll probably be hived off to a relative this Christmas.

Probable team (4-1-3-2): Dikan; Parshivlyuk, Suchy, Pareja, Makeev; Ibson; McGeady, Sheshukov, D. Kombarov; Ari, Welliton.

10 things Arsenal should know about Shakhtar

Mark Gilbey — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:32:00 GMT

You’d imagine someone has probably had a word with those toffee-nosed folk on the door at Harrods and informed them of Shakhtar Donetsk’s arrival at Luton Airport on Sunday evening.

But NMTB wagers Mircea Lucescu won’t be taking the Ukrainian champions souvenir hunting in Knightsbridge, not after his squad was unceremoniously turned away from the famous department store prior to last year’s Europa League tie against Fulham.

Apparently Harrods was too busy, and it definitely wasn’t because their snooty staff didn’t fancy a load of eastern European men in tracksuits wandering round and lowering the tone of the place. Definitely not.

1) Shakhtar arrive in Foggy Albion on a seven-game winning streak

The Hirnyky are quite good at this football business, and have been on more long winning runs than a Kenyan athlete of late, so they're not exactly unaccustomed to the odd victory, but they’ve beaten some half-decent sides recently.

In the Champions League Shakhtar overcame Partizan Belgrade, and what have surprisingly transpired to be Group H’s whipping boys, SC Braga, while domestically Ukraine’s second and third best sides, Dynamo Kyiv and Metalist Kharkiv, have been put to the sword.

Twenty goals have been scored in these seven games with just two conceded, leaving them positioned nicely at the Vyscha Liga’s summit, five points ahead of Dynamo.

2) They haven’t come to park the bus

Mister, as Mircea Lucescu is affectionately known, prefers a 4-2-3-1 formation, and Shakhtar’s intricate passing game isn't a million miles away from that of Arsene Wenger’s mob, except the Ukrainians aren’t adverse to the odd shot from distance now and again.

If the Romanian sticks to his principals, this could be a cracking game between two sides who play football the way it should be played.

(Expect NMTB to have jinxed things now, and Mister to go all Gurban Berdiýew on us and opt for a bus-parkingalicious 5-4-1 formation like Rubin Kazan did when Barcelona visited Tatarstan last month.)

Even if Lucescu doesn’t alter things, you’d imagine Răzvan Raţ and Darijo Srna will probably be a bit more reserved and not bomb forward from the full-back positions at every opportunity to support Douglas Costa and Willian out wide, both of whom enjoy drifting inside when they have the ball. Luiz Adriano will lead the line up top.

3) Mircea Lucescu likes a Brazilian (oo-er)

Lucescu clearly subscribes to the stereotype of the Brazilian footballer being one of dizzying skills and quite adept at finding the back of the net, while not being all that hot on the defensive side of things, as his collection of Samba superstars occupy the lion’s share of his team’s attacking positions. Things at the back are looked after by the eastern Europeans.

Brazilians, Lucescu once said, “play football for football.” Seven of them are currently in the Shakhtar squad; eight, if you're a pernickety sod and include Eduardo, and some of them are indeed rather good.

The likes of Douglas Costa and Fernandinho, whom his manager affirms is the best Brazilian defensive midfielder in Europe, would walk into any side in the Premier League. And Lucescu isn’t content with just seven, either.

Shakhtar’s scouts have been back to South America for another look at Santos’ teenage midfielder Alan Patrick, and during their recent training camp in Turkey they were joined by two 16-year-olds from Brazil.

For some reason, Shakhtar’s Brazilian collecting zillionaire owner Rinat Akhmetov was against a cap on foreigners in the Vyscha Liga when the idea was mooted. Can't imagine why…

4) They’ve had their injury problems

Olexiy Gai has performed admirably of late, but he’s no Fernandinho.

Obolon Kyiv were the last side to beat Shakhtar (on 10 September), after deciding that an effective way to stifle Ukraine’s number one team might be to kick them all over the pitch and stop them being able to play.It worked.

Obolon won 1-0 and Fernandinho had his leg broken by Vladyslav Lupashko after being booted six foot in the air. He’ll be a massive loss for Shakhtar.

So enraged were Shakhtar at the dirty challenges meted out to their players, they published a photographic essay on the club’s website of the match’s “deadliest moments”. All 84 of them.

Barcelona flop (not NMTB’s words, Google Instant’s when you begin typing “Dmytro Chygrynskiy”) started his first game since August on Friday after a hamstring injury, a match in which erstwhile one-time target Yaroslav Rakitskiy also returned.

Douglas Costa has been out for the last fortnight after suffering an injury against Dynamo Kyiv, but should play. If not, never mind, there’s another tricky young Brazilian in the form of Alex Teixeira waiting in the wings.

Any more injuries and Mircea will be on the phone to PFC Sevastopol asking for somersaulting ex-Wigan striker Julius Aghahowa back from his loan spell. Actually, things aren’t that desperate. They’ll never be that desperate…

5) Rinat Akhmetov doesn’t like being called an oligarch

Those guys and gals at the Kyiv Post have been playing with their abacuses (abaci?) and worked out that Shakhtar’s president has a cool $9.6 billion in the bank.

The 43-year-old, who is a pals with Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovych earned his money in the nineties from the Donbass region’s coal and steel.

Just don’t use the “o” word. Akhmetov took legal action against Le Figaro after they dubbed him "a scandalous Ukrainian oligarch”.

*Quickly checks old blogs*

6) Henrikh Mkhitaryan is quite good

You can tell this Armenian lad is quality because Mircea Lucescu splurged £5 million on an attacking player who isn't Brazilian. The 21-year-old is enjoying himself at the moment; scoring his first Shakhtar goal, making his Champions League debut and he was the architect of Armenia’s recent wins over Slovakia and Andorra.

Oh, and his surname is pronounced Ma-khi-tar-yan, before you ask.

7) Dudu will be on the bench

Unless Lucescu gets all sentimental, Eduardo won’t start tonight on his big return to the Emirates; this won’t stop the media talking about that tackle, mind.

Injury and the general brilliantness of Luiz Adriano on his own up front (seven goals in seven games, thank you very much) have meant Dudu has started life in eastern Ukraine on the bench.

Wigan loanee Marcelo Moreno isn't going to feature in the starting XI either.

8) Răzvan Raţ’s surname isn’t pronounced “Rat”

It’s just a pet peev of the blog’s, but during both games against Fulham, whoever the chap commentating for ITV was continually referred to the Romanian left-back as “Rat”, and then proceeded with some rodent-based puns.

This annoyed NMTB. Lots. It’s not Rat you ******* ****”. It’s ‘Rats’. There’s a ******* cedilla on the “t” you ******* ****. Do some ******* research. Ahem, yes. Next point.

9) The Premier Liga gave Shakhtar an extra day to prepare

The Donetsk derby with Metalurg was shifted to Friday; they could afford to a few players too, mainly because Shakhtar usually do quite well against their cross-city rivals, having won 24 of their 26 encounters and everything.

And despite never getting out of second gear, Shakhtar made it 25/27 with a comfortable 2-0 win.

10) The last time Shakhtar played Arsenal they won 3-0

Although that was back in the 2000/01 Champions League group stages and the only person from either side remaining is Arsene Wenger.

Shakhtar haven’t won on three visits to London, it is worth pointing out.

Probable team (4-2-3-1): Pyatov; Srna, Chygrynskiy, Rakitskiy, Raţ, Hübschman; Gai, Douglas Costa, Mkhitaryan, Willian; Luiz Adriano.