Both Arsenal and Manchester United strolled to easy wins in the Champions League on Tuesday. Arsenal were at their attacking best as they thrashed Fenerbahce 5-2 in their Champions League match in Istanbul.
Fenerbahce had been unbeaten in their last 15 European games at home, bit Arsenal’s win was so convincing that the Gunners were applauded off the field by the home supporters. With the win Arsenal now lead Group G by two points from FC Dynamo Kyiv who claimed their first Champions League win in almost four years against Porto. Fenerbahçe are bottom with just one draw to their name and desperately need a result in London on 5 November.
In the Battle of Britain 2008, Manchester United’s class was too much for a depleted Celtic team. While Dimitar Berbatov’s goals both had the hint of offside, United were by far the better team on the night. In the other match in Group E Villarreal survived a real scare before defeating AaB 6-3 . Qualifying for the group stages is highly unlikely for Celtic, and it looks like they will have to go to Aab on November 25th and get a result is they are to get through to the UEFA Cup.
The big non-British match involved Juventus and Real Madrid which Juve won 2-1 to move to the top of Group H. In the other match in this group Zenit St Petersburg once again failed to impress by only drawing 1-1 at home to BATE Borisov. Zenit sit bottom of the group and need to win against BATE in two weeks if they hope to even make the UEFA Cup stages.
In Group F Karim Benzema and Fred finally lived up their reputations as Lyon twice came from behind to beat Steaua Bucharest 5-3. The win sees Lyon go clear in second place in the group, which is headed by Bayern Munich, who beat Fiorentina3-0. La Viola are now five points behind Bayern with no victories under their belt and are in serious trouble to seeing their European campaign end before Christmas.
