City might be owning the EPL at the moment but they seem totally out their depth in the CL. I know it's their debut in the competition, but the majority of their team has plenty experience and this shouldn't really be happening.

Something hasn't clicked.

And, I didn't know you were a Napoli fan Kurt?

They really do look poor.


Sort of. Not a fan in the sense that I am of Villa/Milan, but I really enjoy the way they play, I like alot of their players. Also, if they go through, chances are that City don't and I don't much like Bayern either!

1-1! Maggio with a nice cross, Budstuber OG.

Bayern get a BS penalty, justice done, easy save for Di Sanctis.

Amazing what £500m does.

City's last goal offside or not? I saw it without a replay.

The ball was closer to the goal than all the other players ... Being behind the ball, means no offside

What is the difference between signing a dozen expensive players over a 5 year period like Utd, Barca, Real do, or buying them more or less at once like City have?

End of the day, if Milan or Villa or Rangers had 500M quid, I suspect we'd use it to improve our squad sh!tloads too.

First of all, I don't think it's money. Secondly, Juventus is a great example of how much planning and long term signings can be more beneficial then just changing half of your team year after year.

That the Juve who spent about £40M on 4 new players in the summer?

There's a huge difference though. A City fan I know was saying that they're being unfairly treated and they're only doing what United have done, which simply is not true.

City have a net spent of £314m in 4 years. SAF has a net spend of £224m in 25 years. City average £78m a year, whilst SAF £8m. United's most expensive 4 year period in their history was 01/02-04/05 in which they had a net spend on £98m, £24.5m per year.

So basically, United at their highest spending point ever is still 3 times less than what City do now.

And I think that's the point Fillipo was trying to make when talking about Juve. They've been poor for a number of years due to the huge turnover of players.

I am not a fan of big spending at all and I've even been a critic of the great Milan teams in the late 80s/early 90s because of the money that was spent on the team. It's also why I am a huge Mourinho fan. I'm not trying to cause a debate about him, but he did make a profit on players in 09/10 whilst winning the treble.

Villa spent £30m or so 2 years running and I thought that was too much. City seemingly spend around that figure on every player that buy.

Remember one thing Kurt - players cost MUCH more in the last 2 or 3 years than they did 10 years ago.

For Man City to get the quality Man Utd have got, they have to spend more.

Aguero, in 2001, would have cost about 10 to maybe 20M at most. Now he's £38M or whatever it was. Decent to good players cost £20M these days - that's about what Rooney cost in 2004.

Prices have skyrocketed in the last 2 or 3 years, and City, to compete with the best, have to spend far more than the best did to become the best. Not that they're the best yet, but you know what I mean.

Generally speaking, yes. But it certainly doesn't account for most of City's spending. For example before the takeover they spent £18m on Jo.. a fee we spent on Darren Bent this year. City have spent a decent whack of money on some pretty average players even before this, so it's not like it's just because fee's have gone up now.

Either way it's nice to see a superbly well run club like Napoli sit above them in the table.

I wonder how many goals will Barça score against Plzen.

Every club in England has wasted stupid amounts on players who didn't justify it though. 30M for Berbatov, 15M for that terrible full back for Chelsea (or was it Liverpool) who ended up in Turkey (or was it Greece). 50M on Torres. 35M on Carroll.

So you can't really pin that one on them.

Yep, exactly.

Speaking about EPL transfers, Chelsea paid €20 million for Paulo Ferreira in 2004. Jose was high on that day.

Seriously? Wow.

he was pretty good DEFENSIVE rb at the time, not worth 20M but still

So who's watching what today? Arsenal-Marseille seems about the best of the lot so I'll go with that.

My choice as well .. What is Wenger doing benching Persie !?

Watched the last clash a week ago and it was boring as hell. No thanks, BVB vs. Oympiakos for me.

Wow .. You should tune into the Barca game

Why? What's happening?

Red Card for Plzen defender which leads to a penalty for Barca, and Messi makes it 0-1 ... The goal festival is about to start

Sounds like a good pick.

The good news is that Dani Alves won't play vs Milan after picking another yellow card.

BTW, Messi now scored over 200 goals for Barca.
Jonas (Valencia) scored the fastest goal in CL ever, after only 10 seconds.

EDIT: Congrats to APOEL Nicosia for beating Porto. Need just two points from the last two games to qualify.

The goal, clocked after 10.5 seconds of play, was the second-fastest in Champions League history, narrowly behind Roy Makaay’s strike after 10.12 seconds for Bayern Munich against Real Madrid in the round of 16 back in 2007.

Neuer - Boateng, van Buyten, Badstuber, Lahm - Luiz Gustavo, Schweinsteiger - Müller, Kroos, Ribery - Gomez
de Sanctis - Campagnaro, Fernandez, Aronica - Maggio, Inler, Dzemaili, Zuniga - Hamsik, Lavezzi - Cavani

Hmm, I think I'll be watching the Bayern-Napoli game... Not that much of a choice otherwise.

from twitter: Inter starting XI v Lille has average age of 31 years & 317 days - the oldest average in Champions League history, beating AC Milan record.

Napoli down.

Gomez again. FFS Napoli.

Time to put Inter on I think.

Gomez became super lethal in the last few years. 39 goals in 45 games last season, and 18 goals in 17 games this season (today's brace included).

He is a monster! Probably my favorite striker currently playing, if I can call a player favorite. Pato's round about near him, and then there is Džeko. After these top three, there is a very big and deep gap. Nice to see Gomze carving his career up, I've been following the guy for quite some time now. Epic's the word.

Oh man, Milito missed an open goal from 8 yards.

Yeah Gomez has become an absolute goal machine, and he's not just about tap-ins...

As for Napoli, they've got great potential but two things are holding them back IMO: 1. arrogance, 2. lack of experience and confidence. arrogance when they fail to beat Serie A teams they should beat with ease, because a few good results against us, Inter etc. has gone to their heads. and lack of experience and confidence in big European nights like this. they just fell apart after Bayern scored the first goal...

I'd add a third weakness: lack of defensive depth. Their first team lineup is far from bad, but they lack some quality for the backups.

Milito finally scores, 2-0.

+1

Man City are walking Villarreal on their own patch.

Though Villarreal with almsot half squad injured.

Can only beat what's in front of you, and to say they are outclassing them would probably be unfair... on Man City.

Other than Inter, a pretty bad night.

Napoli almost made a comeback but too late. Now they must beat City in the next game.

At San Paolo?

Yep. Totally possible.

Yep, what I was thinking. it will be one hell of a game.

If they end up with a draw, they still can finish 2nd after Bayern.

But my main question is - how much damage you guys think can Bayern make to teams like Madrid or Barcelona?

A whole lot...
For my money, Bayern is only decent CBs away from being the world's third most talented squad.