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Anyone who watches Arsenal these days are amazed at their flowing football and their movement. They are without doubt the best team to watch in the Premier League and it is no surprise that they have such a following on the continent.

But even though they beat Porto 5-0 last night and 6-2 on aggregate to reach the Quarter-Finals of the Champions League, there were rocky moments in the Arsenal defence that highlights why they buckle against top sides.

Several of the goals that Porto conceded would not have been conceded by Premier League opposition including the stunning individual goal by Samir Nasri.

Despite leading 2-0 and 3-2 on aggregate, there was a very nervous 15-20 minutes during the early stages of the second half where Porto could have easily scored. Defensive lapses of concentration that would have been punished by the very best.

Arsenal are still not at the level of teams like Man United, Chelsea and Barcelona. This is why Arsene Wenger stated that the Premier League could be Arsenal’s best chance of silverware this season as they don’t have to play anymore top sides.

Porto were never strong enough to win the tournament and neither were Fiorentina who depsite beating Bayern Munich on the night,went out on the away goals rule. It is difficult to see the winners of this competition coming from outside the big six which are Man United, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid and the two Milan clubs.

Personally I think that Barcelona may be the first team ever to retain the Champions League in its current capacity and they have been my favourites since day one.

They will surely get the result against Stuttgart after drawing 1-1 in Germany. Although two of my “big six” are certain to be eliminated in the last 16 stage as they play each other and Real Madrid have an awkward 1-0 deficit to overcome against Lyon.

Chelsea produced a thoroughly professional performance yesterday beating Stoke City 2-0 at Stamford Bridge to march on to the semi-finals of the cup at Wembley. Even John Terry had a good game and he appears to be getting over his personal problems now.

I don’t know if any of the English teams are strong enough at this time to win the Champions League but Chelsea will not be thinking about that just yet. They now face Aston Villa in the semi-finals at Wembley after an amazing game at Reading in which they came from 2-0 down at half-time to score three goals in the first 11 minutes of the second half and they eventually won 4-2.

Portsmouth will play the winner of the Tottenham versus Fulham replay and who would back against Portsmouth having the spirit to reach another final? They are still battling their possible 9pt deduction in the league in the courts and if they win that then who knows.

They play Birmingham again in the league this week and if they win that and their court battle to keep the 9pts then they could only be 2pts from safety. I have known teams in the past get to the FA Cup final in the same season that they were relegated. It could often be a great cushion in the past but not so today with the financial incentives that are on offer for being in the top league.

I still think that the winner will come from either Chelsea/Villa/Spurs but who would write Fulham off in the replay at White Hart Lane……not me.

The FA Cup quarter-finals started yesterday and if ever one team needed a morale boosting win then it was Portsmouth. The 2008 winners are now in the semi-finals which will be played at Wembley after beating Birmingham 2-0.

Portsmouth deserved the victory as well by all accounts but Birmingham are a very difficult side to beat so I am sure than any team who plays Portsmouth in the semi-final would prefer them over Birmingham if they were honest.

Fulham and Tottenham ground out a tense 0-0 draw at Craven Cottage and must now replay at the lane. This is Tottenham’s third consecutive replay and Fulham are also experiencing a fixture pile up with two more games at least in Europe against Juventus to come.

I would place Juventus on a similar level to Shakhtar Donetsk so Fulham should start as underdogs. I don’t expect another upset as I tend to go by probabilities to base my decisions.

Sometimes it appears that I am being overly hard on teams but its just simple probability. How long can teams go on for beating superior opposition? Reading play Aston Villa today while the game that I am looking forward to is Stoke against Chelsea.

Tony Pulis has done a fantastic job at Stoke and after easily avoiding relegation last season after being promoted, they are doing so again this season. Any manager who accomplishes that has to be seriously commended.

I was one of the people who thought that sides would adjust to Stoke this season and that they could struggle…….10pts clear of the relegation zone with 10 games to go is hardly struggling is it?

It will be interesting today to see how Chelsea handle the direct style of Stoke and players like Ricardo Fuller and Rory Delap. Defeat for Chelsea today come be damaging to their morale coming on the back of losing the lead in the title race yesterday with Manchester United winning at Wolves.

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When you look at the Premier League and the bottom few places, it looks like it is down to the bottom six now for who gets relegated. Stoke City and Blackburn seem to be clear of it on 34pts and you also expect these two clubs both to amass enough points by the end of the season to stay up.

The next two below them are West Ham and Sunderland on 27pts. These two teams are only 3pts clear of the drop zone but even though Sunderland have not won in ages, I still fancy them to turn the corner and not to go down.

If you accept that Portsmouth with their 9pt penalty are almost down then Sunderland are surely better than at least two of the other clubs down there. West Ham also seemed to have turned the corner so my six to go down are the teams that are occupying the bottom six places.

These are Bolton, Wolves, Wigan, Hull, Burnley and Portsmouth. That list is hardly a surprise but I don’t expect any other team to go down. It has been an absolute disaster for Portsmouth, coming less than 2yrs after they tasted the glory of winning the FA Cup at Wembley against Cardiff.

The first ever Premier League club to go into administration and you have to ask if this will be the last? I always find the relegation scrap at this time of the season every bit as enthralling as the battle for the title.

There have been some really nervous final day encounters in recent years and with the exception of Portsmouth, it could go down to the final game of the season again. It looks though as if Newcastle United may be making a speedy return to the top flight. They are 8pts clear of third place with a game in hand.

It may be the norm in other countries but we do not often get it in England…..a three team title race. Amazing as that sounds, but you now have to make Arsenal title challengers again.

I even wrote their obituary on this blog some weeks ago. But now they are a mere 3pts behind Chelsea and only 2pts behind Manchester United. They do not have to play any of the top four clubs and are in serious danger of winning the title.

A look through the fixtures and the most difficult game is Tottenham away for Arsenal. Their 3-1 win at Stoke yesterday was massive despite the horrific injury to young Aaron Ramsey who had his leg broken in a tackle by Ryan Shawcross.

The next four league games for Arsenal are Burnley, Wolves, Hull and Birmingham. Manchester United and Chelsea both have to play each other. In fact Manchester United also have to play their great rivals City and also Liverpool who are back in form.

Chelsea have to play Villa, Liverpool and Spurs as well as United. Arsene Wenger was mad at the tackle yesterday but this is a knock on effect of grooming fragile players.

I am not suggesting that Arsenal’s players are fragile but they are ball players and not big tacklers. So they are always going to come second best in strong robust challenges. It is no coincidence that the last horror injury in the Premier League happened to an Arsenal player in Eduardo.

Arsene Wenger will say that it is because of a witch hunt against his team but if any team were to be targeted then surely it would be Manchester United and Chelsea. Speaking of Chelsea, their 4-2 defeat at home to Manchester City was an amazing game and all is definitely not well at the Bridge.

With Cole injured (both of them) and now Cech, they can hardly be in a position to lose John Terry if only mentally. Things could get tough for the Blues in the coming weeks.

With Wayne Bridge stating this week that he will take no further part of England’s build up to the World Cup, England’s chances of doing really well in the competition have taken a serious knock.

The only experienced replacement for Ashley Cole and suddenly our first and second choice left backs will either not be there or will be in serious doubt of being there.

Of course, one has to hope that Cole will recover faster than expected but with Capello’s stance on taking players only if they are fit then you would have to expect him not to take Cole if he is not fully fit.

However this is an emergency situation because when we get to play the best in the world if we get to the latter stages then the opposing teams will see whoever is playing in that position as a potential weakness and attack that point.

If I were Capello, I would take Cole if he has regained anything approaching his fitness. The World Cup is a month long so he will have extra recuperation time at the tournament. It will be match sharpness that he will lack.

But there could be a plus side as well because if he does regain fitness in time then England will be taking a player who will be physically fresh after missing three months of the season.

So I think that it is too early to say what will happen yet. I heard yesterday that Capello was trying to talk to Bridge and convince him to change his mind. I think Bridge realises that he is the one who is expendable and not John Terry.

He states that his presence could be divisive and you have to agree with him. Today’s game between Chelsea and Manchester City will maybe show some indication of Bridge’s feelings towards Terry.

I never expected Fulham to get past the holders Shakhtar Donetsk last night. Winning the first leg 2-1 is not a good result and I always felt that Fulham needed to score to win the tie as I simply didn’t feel that they could keep Shakhtar out for 90 minutes.

But they did with a great 1-1 draw and now face Juventus in the last 16 after they beat Ajax over two legs. Liverpool eventually came through as well after going a goal down against Unirea Urziceni.

That 3-1 win and 4-1 on aggregate sets up a match against Lille now in the last sixteen. Lille scored late on in their match in Turkey against Fernebahce and Liverpool will be happier going to France than Turkey.

It will be another tough tie for Liverpool but I expect them to make the quarter-finals now and they are coming into form at the right time. I expected more from Everton last night and they never did themselves justice going down 3-0 in Lisbon to Sporting.

Everton must be sick of the sight of that city after they lost 5-0 to Benfica in the group stages. David Moyes was clearly disappointed afterwards which leads you to think that he really wanted to do well in this competition.

But traditionally English teams have not done well in this competition and even though it has been re-named……it is still essentially the UEFA Cup in my mind. Not since Liverpool in 2001 has an English team lifted this trophy.

It could be Liverpool again and they have as a good a chance as anyone. But some dangerous sides were knocked out last night……Roma…..Shakhtar…..PSV and Villarreal all bit the dust.

Some great sides left in though like Juventus, Marseilles, the big three German clubs in Hamburg, Werder Bremen and Wolfsburg with Sporting Lisbon and Benfica still being there.

One sad note……Portsmouth go into administration this morning and that means a 9pt penalty in the league so effectively they are relegated now. This will make them 17pts adrift. What has happened at Fratton Park needs to be made public and lessons need to be learned to stop this kind of thing from happening to a top flight club ever again.

Bordeaux had a very good result in the last 16 of the Champions League last night winning 1-0 away to Olympiakos. While their Greek opponents may not be the strongest they could have faced, any away win in this competition is a great result.

You would have to fancy Laurent Blanc’s side to reach the last 8 now and they are having a great season as they are also top of the league in France. It looks as though Blanc has ended the dominance of Lyon in recent seasons and he does appear to be a very shrewd operator.

So much so that Alex Ferguson is alleged to want him to replace him when he finally steps down at Old Trafford. Bordeaux could be the surprise package in this competition as I simply do not expect anyone to turn them over.

Everyone speaks of Barcelona, Real, Inter and the three big English clubs but no one mentions Bordeaux as possible winners of this competition. They came through a group that included Bayern Munich and Juventus and topped that group so they are clearly a very good side.

Barcelona also got a good result drawing 1-1 away at Stuttgart. I expect them to complete the job at the Nou Camp. I like this new format for spacing the games out as it gives me the opportunity to watch more football.

Usually with the old system in previous years, games clashed more and with four English clubs in action then you couldn’t watch all four. Really looking forward to Inter Milan against Chelsea in the San Siro tonight.

I think that Chelsea have the edge but the tie seems close to call. I did say a few weeks ago that all three ties involving the English clubs seemed close and I expected one of them to get knocked out just going by the law of averages.

Still time for that

I have been looking at the league tables this weekend and it seems that Stoke City and Blackburn are on the verge of safety now. But that is a great achievement for Tony Pulis at Stoke.

Promoted to the Premier League in 2008, they were in everyones selections as on of the three clubs to go down in the 2008-2009 season and they not only stayed up, they stayed up easily.

The same is happening this season and you have to take your hat off to Tony Pulis. I said last season that teams would adapt to Stoke this season and their system wouldn’t be as effective…….I was wrong.

With all of the bottom clubs losing over the weekend then nothing has changed apart from these two clubs and West Ham winning. West Ham are another club that I expect to run clear over the coming weeks. Their 3-0 home win against Hull was a quality performance by the Hammers.

If Tottenham needed a result then they got one yesterday with a 3-0 win at Wigan although their first goal by Jermaine Defoe was clearly offside. But Spurs needed a win to get back on track.

The race for 4th place and the final Champions League spot is interesting. Tottenham reclaimed 4th spot with Man City and Liverpool grinding out a dull 0-0 draw at Eastlands.

Villa stepped up though with a thumping 5-2 win at home to Burnley. One team who have had an amazing slide is Sunderland. Now only 3pts clear of the drop and without a win in ages, they are clearly low on confidence and are desperate for a win. They will need to move quickly as well because 2 to 3 weeks more without a win could see them in the bottom three.

Anyway see you soon

Carl

It is only when I look back on my previous blog entries that I can see just what a season it has been in the Premier League. After Manchester United’s 3-1 defeat at Everton yesterday and Arsenal’s 2-0 win at home to Sunderland then you would have to say that Arsenal are back in this title race.

Although they will probably go and get beat at Stoke next week now that I have said that. Arsenal are now only 2pts behind United with an easier run in so if United are contenders then so are Arsenal.

Still though, how can I go for any other team when my pick which is Chelsea are 4pts clear after their 2-0 win at Wolves. This does appear to be the title though that no one wants to win but I also think that this reflects how the Premier League is getting tougher.

Poor old Portsmouth, if things cannot get any worse for them. They have a perfectly good goal disallowed and then see ten man Stoke City score an injury time winner to deny them a point.

I really think that this was the final straw for Portsmouth. They are 8pts adrift, the players morale must be low and the club is in absolute turmoil.

It really looks like they will be filling one of the three relegation places now. Although football is a strange game and if Portsmouth could somehow find back to back victories then who knows.

In the Championship, I fancy Newcastle United and have done since the start of the season. I think that Chris Hughton is a great appointment for them and they got 45,000 fans yesterday for their 3-0 win.

It is amazing for a club to see those kinds of crowds without being in the top flight.It will be great for the Newcastle people to have their club back where it belongs and even though the attendances were dropping last season due to their dislike of the chairman, you always knew that the Geordies would support their club in numbers.