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Ancelotti and Lewandowski sink the Arsenal

Bayern Munich's 5-1 hammering of Arsenal in the Champions League exposed a major gulf in class betwe...
TodayFM
TodayFM

10:21 PM - 15 Feb 2017



Ancelotti and Lewandowski sink...

Sport

Ancelotti and Lewandowski sink the Arsenal

TodayFM
TodayFM

10:21 PM - 15 Feb 2017



Bayern Munich's 5-1 hammering of Arsenal in the Champions League exposed a major gulf in class between the two clubs. The tie is over and English football still has plenty to do to compete again at the elite stage of Europe's premier club competition. In 2008 and 2009 English clubs accounted for 3 of the 4 Champions League semi finalists. Leicester City aren't likely to get that far and Manchester City are in gestation.   

There has been much debate about the two Arsene Wenger eras at Arsenal. The Frenchman has spent 20 years in North London, winning 3 League titles, 4 FA Cups and reaching a Champions League Final in the first decade, followed by a decade of disappointment, punctuated by a further 2 FA Cup wins. 

The 'Elephant in the room' at Arsenal is whether Wenger will be at the club next season, or whether it is time for him at the age of 67 to call it quits. For all the neat football, there's a sense with Arsenal that every day is Groundhog Day, constant qualification for the Champions League and pretty football overwhelmed by pivotal defeats and a lack of bottle. 

Carlo Ancelotti on the other hand is continuing to win, wherever he goes. People may forget that Ancelotti was a player in 1989 and 1990 in one of the greatest teams of all time, AC Milan's European champions. The Italian has brought his affable nature and tactical acumen to the table in leading Milan to the Champions League (twice) as a manager and repeating the feat with Real Madrid in 2014, after they had gone 12 years without being in that circle. In between, he won a double with Chelsea in his first season and a French league with PSG. Bayern may now have strong claims on the 2017 Champions League trophy in Cardiff in June with the under rated Ancelotti at the helm. He has dealt with egos such as Shevchenko, Pirlo, Kaka, Zlatan, Terry, Robben and Muller. He may not be a box office draw at the interview table, but his results are box office.   

And a final word about the Polish striker Robert Lewandowski. He displayed old fashioned centre forward class in the dissection of Arsenal, planting a fantastic header into the corner of the net to make it 2-1 and then delivering a delicious back heel into the path of Thiago to make it 3-1, all in the space of 3 minutes. Lewandowski would have been at home dominating defences in the 1970s on muddy pitches in the English Division 1. He's that good. 



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