The UEFA Champions League is Back

Wow! Its really been long I wrote, now who is to blame for that...?thinking....(well that has to be myself).
So the UEFA Champions League is back Woohoo lets get an AMEN!!! Sorry to all the love crazed people out there; hey I know February is known as a love month with vals and all, but hey its also the month when the Champions League returns after a very long break.

Well the most anticipated match (City and Barca) was a real let down if I can put it that with City losing 0:2 to Barca; let's forget the red card Hey!!! this is City that were whooping asses anyhow in the EPL.
Guess it was a pretty bad run for the English teams losing 0-2 to their opponents all except Chelsea who managed to draw last night against Galatasaray; who if I clearly remember lost 4:1 to 10 men Real Madrid in the group Stage sometime in November.

So what gives... with City, Arsenal and Man U both losing out by 2 goals, is there really any hope for the English teams? Will this be the 1st time in years that there will be no less than one representative(assuming Chelsea wins the return leg at Stamford Bridge) in the quarters ? Time they say will surely tell.
Even Borrusia Dortmund had a win after a terrible weekend in the Bundesliga losing 3 -0 to Hamburg, they still put that behind them to get a 2:4 win over Zenit St. Petersburg

So we have the Spanish teams on target too, especially for Real Madrid being that they now sit on top of the Laliga table with 63 points and Barca and Athletico Madrid with 60 points respectively showed no mercy as they dealt with Schalke 04 in the BBC way (Benzema, Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo) remember its been like a week without Ronaldo being that he served the red card for the ban in the Laliga match against Athletic Bilbao.

BBC (Benzema, Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo)

Well here's a run down of the results for the first leg of the round of 16, in case you missed it:

Feb 18th :    Bayer Leverkusen 0 - 4 Paris Saint Germaine

                    Manchester City   0 - 2 Barcelona

Feb 19th         AC Milan          0 - 1 Atletico Madrid

                      Arsenal              0 - 2 Bayern Munich

Feb 25th     Zenit St. Petersburg 2 - 4 Borussia Dortmund

                  Olympiakos           2 - 0 Manchester United

Feb 26th     Galatasaray          1 - 1 Chelsea

                   Schalke 04          1 - 6 Real Madrid

And the change happens

So this weekend in the English Premier League was just one filled with so much drama , the kind that makes viewers all around the world love the EPL starting with the Leaders Arsenal losing heavily at Anfield 5 goals to 1; you would think they were in love with 'S names" cause Skrtel, Sterling and Sturridge all found the back of the net. Arteta's lone goal from the spot in the 69th minute being the only consolation for Arsenal.

Sterling celebrating his goal

Then the brilliant display from Eden Hazard gave Chelsea the much needed boost as they over came Newcastle at Stamford bridge 3-0. Now it seems the Little Horse is eating the much needed nutrients and is gradually becoming a Big horse. 

The Special one's comment on Hazard's performance was  'His performance today was no different to the way he's performed in other games, the only difference was that he scored a hat-trick for the first time. It was a very similar performance to the ones he had at Hull, Man City, at home against United and Liverpool, at Southampton. He's playing the same way. He's playing really well, he's had a big evolution, he has consistency, ambition and it's fantastic.'

Hazard being congratulated on scoring his goal 

Now to top it up, Man City did not take the opportunity of Arsenal's slip to go top of the League, but rather were held to  goalless draw by Norwich City. While on the red side of Manchester, they came back from a goal down to score 2 goals in 90 seconds courtesy RVP and Carrick; but Darren Bent cut short their joy in the dying seconds of the added 5 minutes as he slotted in a goal via a header. Thus Man U are still in 7th position after 25 games.

The moment Bent ended it all for United

Disillusioned Mata 

And that just summed up Man U's night

 The Top 4 as it stands now after this weekend's matches:

POS		LP	CLUB	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	PTS
1		(3)	Chelsea	25	17	5	3	47	20	27	56
2		(1)	Arsenal	25	17	4	4	48	26	22	55
3		(2)	Manchester City	25	17	3	5	68	27	41	54
4		(4)	Liverpool	25	15	5	5	63	30	33	50

The Man behind the Cards

Now the spotlight is on Referee Miguel Angel Ayza Gamez, the decision of the red card was it really necessary or not? Or is our man just known to be a Card dashing ref:

Now lets take a look at all the Red Cards he has issued in the past year totaling 10 :

31/01/2013	Atlético Madrid	2-1	Sevilla *
07/01/2013	Rayo Vallecano	3-1	Getefe
09/01/2013	Real Madrid	4-0	Celta de Vigo
09/02/2013	Deportivo La Coruna	0-3	Granada
13/04/2013	Real Valladolid	2-1	Getafe
30/10/2013	Osasuna	3-1	Rayo Vallecano
10/11/2013	Espanyol	1-3	Sevilla
02/02/2014	Athletic Club	1-1	Real Madrid

(Clubs with players issued reds are highlighted in red)
* 3 players were sent off in this match; 2 from Sevilla

Will the Spanish League's Refereeing Technical Committee (CTA) come down hard on him?
Now Miguel hangs in a balance as he serves his suspension.

Ref who sent Ronaldo Off in the Bilbao vs Madrid Match suspended

The referee who sent Cristiano Ronaldo off in the 1-1 draw between Athletic Bilbao and Real Madrid has been suspended following his change in testimony presented for review which made Ronaldo earn a 3 match ban.

The Spanish League's Refereeing Technical Committe (CTA) has dropped Miguel Angel Ayza Gamez for a month and he has been barred from refereeing Madrid's match for the rest of the Season.

Now the real question is "Will Ronaldo's 3-Match ban be lifted?"

Ronaldo was sent off in the 75th Minute; costing Madrid the match

The Madrid Semi-Final Copa del rey

So today happens to be another of the so many times Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid have met.

Though Madrid have had 10 wins over Atletico, but the Atletico have won the last 2 meetings the most significant being the win over Madrid at the Bernabeu ending the dominance of Madrid over Atletico in a very dramatic way for them; but a painful one for Madrid.

Atletico won the Copa del rey 2013 at the Santiago Bernabeu

With Atletico topping the league now with 57 points leaving Barca and Madrid in 2nd and 3rd positions respectively with 54 points. It seems there are clearly the favorites to win this both Copa del rey and La Liga.

With Ronaldo marking his 29th birthday today in the wake of the red card issued during the Bilbao match; he will be playing today, but will probably serve a 4-match ban if found guilty. But will the World Best want to make a statement on his day or not? Time will have to tell. 8pm doesn't seem so far after all...

The Rojiblancos will make history if they beat the Galacticos 3 times in a row; a feat that Diego Simeone will be relishing.

The Santiago Bernabeu beckons...

The Battle of the Billionaires-FT ManCity 0- 1 Chelsea

The match of the EPL, the big Monday Night Football finally came and went; and Chelsea were better off for it, whereas City lost records on the night. Chelsea became the first team this season to leave with any points whatsoever, so and also stopped them from scoring at home in 62 matches.

Coming from the all-attack minded City; now what really happened?

Jose Mourinho's tactics really paid off; everyone expected Chelsea to park the bus; and they did park it , but this time it wasn't just parking the bus, but also they made good use of their counter attacks.

Parking the Chelsea bus

Hazard played a class of football Mou had always expected him too; he completed at least 11 take-ons, the same amount as the entire City team. How's that for Hazard? Pretty impressive.

Now it looks like Chelsea is gradually showing signs of snatching this League title from Arsenal? Or is it too early to say so? But Mou thinks differently, here's what he said " Two horses and a little horse (Chelsea), that still needs milk and learns how to jump. Next season we race."

Ivanovic celebrating his goal(the only goal scored)

Now where did City get it wrong? Could it be because Aguero was injured? But hey there's Negredo and Dzeko and we have Toure who always loves to score when he has the chance. So what really went wrong?

I guess Pellegrini did not see this coming from Mou- The Special One: He added attack to parking the bus in a special way.

The Special One celebrating

Now this makes everyone think they can have a chance at City's hide when they meet next especially in the Etihad.  This is actually the 'weakest' team selection that City has lined up since the start of the season in terms firepower. This might look like a temporal setback for them as their next 6 matches are all against teams at the bottom half of the table Norwich(away), Sunderland(home), Stoke (home) and Aston Villa(home).

Mourinho's Chelsea has once again proven to be one with a dynamic selection. In a match that gave no room for complacency, imagine starting Matic ahead of Mikel and we all saw what he did( Can anyone tell me why Mikel was smiling when he was to come in). This turned out to be a true test of life after the departure of Juan Mata, it would really be interesting to see how things shape up from here on till the end of the season.

Also does this take the expectancy from watching the Barca vs City game? Will it be a route by Barca? Or will we get what we still expected; a spectacle of a match by 2 attacking sides... February 18th is not too far away.