With the last year’s League Cup winners, but Championship occupiers, Birmingham unfortunately falling short of the round of 32, despite picking up ten points, enough to qualify them from seven of the twelve groups, and Tottenham going much the same way, although Harry Redknapp was never really bothered anyway, plucky Stoke were the only English side to qualify for the last 32.
If qualifying for the Europa League was Stoke’s biggest achievement in their 149-year history, as cited by Tony Pulis, finishing second in Group E, “the toughest group out there,” was another landmark feat. However, the adventure would end there for The Potters’ European roadshow: already naming fatigue as a season inhibiter as early as October due to the saturated fixture list, Pulis named a fairly sub-standard side against Valencia in their second-leg and with a 1-0 deficit to overturn, they did admirably to battle bravely on Spanish soil to only go down a goal to nil. The full weight of pressure was never on Stoke’s stocky shoulders, but it leaves the Manchester sides as the ones bearing the burden.
Like I said, it’s been a bad week when our Champions League failures are suddenly our, potentially, only European hopes.
Yet, like Wenger, we’ve been left to cling to whatever is there to keep our pride afloat: we’re the Best League in the World TM, remember? So, here we’re left with Manchester United taking on Athletic Bilbao and Manchester City taking on another Portuguese side in the form of Sporting Lisbon.
City were convincing in advancing to the last sixteen: twice taking the lead against Porto to beat the current holders 2-1 at the Estadio Do Dragao, Manchester City took the advantage into their home leg and replicating the home form they’ve shown all season, winning all thirteen of their Premier League games, The Citizens ruthlessly hammered home four goals to go into the weekend’s clash with Blackburn back on track after a shaky spell in Yaya & Kolo Toure’s absence in which they managed to stay ahead of their city rivals by two points.
Manchester United, however, were far from resounding: taking a comfortable 2-0 lead into the home leg and having to maintain it without Wayne Rooney fit to increase the advantage, Sir Alex Ferguson took the risky approach of naming a mixture of youth and reserves amongst his match day squad. Ajax did the same and although Javier Hernandez increased the lead to three within the opening ten minutes, the far more organised, focused and well-led Dutch side reigned supreme for much of the game, demonstrating full control of the ball and hitting back with two well-taken goals to ensure the last five minutes was a panicked frenzy.
With both sides intending to take the competition seriously and stating an urge to go all the way and win it, it promises to present England with a chance to readdress a fairly dismal season in front of the European media on and off the pitch. However, with both locked at the horns in a fight for the Premier League, an inevitable power struggle further heightened by the inter-city rivalry between the two clubs, the further each side goes in the Cup and the longer the Premier League title race remains as close as it is, with just one result capable of changing who leads the pack, it may well turn out to be a battle of who folds first and, unfortunately, it will be England’s European hopes that’ll be sacrificed.
Let’s just hope the same isn’t said on the international stage come the summer.
Written by Jordan Florit for www.maycauseoffence.com/ For more articles visit my website or my Twitter @JordanFlorit
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