Blip or trend?
Blip or trend?
Back in the muddy days of late November, I wrote a piece arguing that this season's Champions League was possibly the weakest ever, and ripe for the winning by a Premiership club. At the time, I was ridiculed and slated, and - slightly harshly - accused of being a third-rate Premiership cheerleader; a bit like Sky's Richard Keys without the body hair. Perhaps such criticism wasn't totally unfair, for my prediction came in the raw aftermath of Manchester United's defeat to Celtic. Five months on, however, we know this: barring a freak of nature, three of the four semi-finalists in this year's tournament will be from the Premiership. It's enough to make you ask all the basic journalistic questions - what? why? how? - with increasing incredulity, before finding a good pillow to rest your head.
Tonight United certainly presented an emphatic case for their chances of lifting their third European Cup by ripping Roma apart, almost sadistically at times, with the skill of a master swordsman. From the moment Michael Carrick opened the scoring, digging the ball from under his feet and over Doni's head with fatherly tenderness, Sir Alex Ferguson's side played football rarely seen outside a junior schoolboy's fantasies. Every ball was pinged swiftly and accurately from foot-to-foot, every trick seemed to come off, every shot from outside the area seemed to go in. Few teams would have had an answer to the hi-octane flair of Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Cristano Ronaldo, whose argument for being the best attacking player in the world grows stronger by the game. Roma certainly didn't.
Chelsea were slower to reach the burn, but the muscular way they responded to a Fernando Morientes' first-half opener for Valencia was, in a different way, just as impressive as United's 7-1 victory over Roma. On nights like this, Jose Mourinho's side remind you of the Terminator: cold, relentless, overpowering. Even when you blast a hole in their head, they still keep coming. In the end, Michael Essien's late strike settled it, but you could sense their winner was coming from the moment Andriy Shevchenko jabbed home the equaliser.
But it will be United that we - critics, commentators and bloggers - will drool over during the coming days. To humble a side ranked second in Serie A surely places their performance high in the pantheon of the club's great European nights, up there with Lisbon, Wembley, Rotterdam, Turin and Barcelona. The fact they did so with a starting eleven featuring John O'Shea and Darren Fletcher - whose careers have appeared stillborn since 2004 - and Alan Smith, who hitherto had scored twice in his last 63 games - both against Charlton at the Valley - should have us all asking questions too.
The obvious one is this: is the Premier League now definitely superior than La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga? If so, is it because the overwhelming thud of money from Sky, oily oligarchs and fat US sugar daddies is finally telling, or because the European leagues have been temporarily poisoned by the effects of calciopoli (in the case of Serie A) and internal unrest or upheaval (see Barcelona and Real Madrid)? In short, trend or blip?It is perhaps too early to say. But after tonight, those of us who have sneered at the Premiership's more enthusiastic propagandists over the past 15 years may have to concede that, finally, their time has arrived. And, with the obscene amount of cash sloshing around the English game, there's probably more glory nights to come.
Back in the muddy days of late November, I wrote a piece arguing that this season's Champions League was possibly the weakest ever, and ripe for the winning by a Premiership club. At the time, I was ridiculed and slated, and - slightly harshly - accused of being a third-rate Premiership cheerleader; a bit like Sky's Richard Keys without the body hair. Perhaps such criticism wasn't totally unfair, for my prediction came in the raw aftermath of Manchester United's defeat to Celtic. Five months on, however, we know this: barring a freak of nature, three of the four semi-finalists in this year's tournament will be from the Premiership. It's enough to make you ask all the basic journalistic questions - what? why? how? - with increasing incredulity, before finding a good pillow to rest your head.
Tonight United certainly presented an emphatic case for their chances of lifting their third European Cup by ripping Roma apart, almost sadistically at times, with the skill of a master swordsman. From the moment Michael Carrick opened the scoring, digging the ball from under his feet and over Doni's head with fatherly tenderness, Sir Alex Ferguson's side played football rarely seen outside a junior schoolboy's fantasies. Every ball was pinged swiftly and accurately from foot-to-foot, every trick seemed to come off, every shot from outside the area seemed to go in. Few teams would have had an answer to the hi-octane flair of Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Cristano Ronaldo, whose argument for being the best attacking player in the world grows stronger by the game. Roma certainly didn't.
Chelsea were slower to reach the burn, but the muscular way they responded to a Fernando Morientes' first-half opener for Valencia was, in a different way, just as impressive as United's 7-1 victory over Roma. On nights like this, Jose Mourinho's side remind you of the Terminator: cold, relentless, overpowering. Even when you blast a hole in their head, they still keep coming. In the end, Michael Essien's late strike settled it, but you could sense their winner was coming from the moment Andriy Shevchenko jabbed home the equaliser.
But it will be United that we - critics, commentators and bloggers - will drool over during the coming days. To humble a side ranked second in Serie A surely places their performance high in the pantheon of the club's great European nights, up there with Lisbon, Wembley, Rotterdam, Turin and Barcelona. The fact they did so with a starting eleven featuring John O'Shea and Darren Fletcher - whose careers have appeared stillborn since 2004 - and Alan Smith, who hitherto had scored twice in his last 63 games - both against Charlton at the Valley - should have us all asking questions too.
The obvious one is this: is the Premier League now definitely superior than La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga? If so, is it because the overwhelming thud of money from Sky, oily oligarchs and fat US sugar daddies is finally telling, or because the European leagues have been temporarily poisoned by the effects of calciopoli (in the case of Serie A) and internal unrest or upheaval (see Barcelona and Real Madrid)? In short, trend or blip?It is perhaps too early to say. But after tonight, those of us who have sneered at the Premiership's more enthusiastic propagandists over the past 15 years may have to concede that, finally, their time has arrived. And, with the obscene amount of cash sloshing around the English game, there's probably more glory nights to come.
Back in the muddy days of late November, I wrote a piece arguing that this season's Champions League was possibly the weakest ever, and ripe for the winning by a Premiership club. At the time, I was ridiculed and slated, and - slightly harshly - accused of being a third-rate Premiership cheerleader; a bit like Sky's Richard Keys without the body hair. Perhaps such criticism wasn't totally unfair, for my prediction came in the raw aftermath of Manchester United's defeat to Celtic. Five months on, however, we know this: barring a freak of nature, three of the four semi-finalists in this year's tournament will be from the Premiership. It's enough to make you ask all the basic journalistic questions - what? why? how? - with increasing incredulity, before finding a good pillow to rest your head.
Tonight United certainly presented an emphatic case for their chances of lifting their third European Cup by ripping Roma apart, almost sadistically at times, with the skill of a master swordsman. From the moment Michael Carrick opened the scoring, digging the ball from under his feet and over Doni's head with fatherly tenderness, Sir Alex Ferguson's side played football rarely seen outside a junior schoolboy's fantasies. Every ball was pinged swiftly and accurately from foot-to-foot, every trick seemed to come off, every shot from outside the area seemed to go in. Few teams would have had an answer to the hi-octane flair of Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Cristano Ronaldo, whose argument for being the best attacking player in the world grows stronger by the game. Roma certainly didn't.
Chelsea were slower to reach the burn, but the muscular way they responded to a Fernando Morientes' first-half opener for Valencia was, in a different way, just as impressive as United's 7-1 victory over Roma. On nights like this, Jose Mourinho's side remind you of the Terminator: cold, relentless, overpowering. Even when you blast a hole in their head, they still keep coming. In the end, Michael Essien's late strike settled it, but you could sense their winner was coming from the moment Andriy Shevchenko jabbed home the equaliser.
But it will be United that we - critics, commentators and bloggers - will drool over during the coming days. To humble a side ranked second in Serie A surely places their performance high in the pantheon of the club's great European nights, up there with Lisbon, Wembley, Rotterdam, Turin and Barcelona. The fact they did so with a starting eleven featuring John O'Shea and Darren Fletcher - whose careers have appeared stillborn since 2004 - and Alan Smith, who hitherto had scored twice in his last 63 games - both against Charlton at the Valley - should have us all asking questions too.
The obvious one is this: is the Premier League now definitely superior than La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga? If so, is it because the overwhelming thud of money from Sky, oily oligarchs and fat US sugar daddies is finally telling, or because the European leagues have been temporarily poisoned by the effects of calciopoli (in the case of Serie A) and internal unrest or upheaval (see Barcelona and Real Madrid)? In short, trend or blip?It is perhaps too early to say. But after tonight, those of us who have sneered at the Premiership's more enthusiastic propagandists over the past 15 years may have to concede that, finally, their time has arrived. And, with the obscene amount of cash sloshing around the English game, there's probably more glory nights to come.
Back in the muddy days of late November, I wrote a piece arguing that this season's Champions League was possibly the weakest ever, and ripe for the winning by a Premiership club. At the time, I was ridiculed and slated, and - slightly harshly - accused of being a third-rate Premiership cheerleader; a bit like Sky's Richard Keys without the body hair. Perhaps such criticism wasn't totally unfair, for my prediction came in the raw aftermath of Manchester United's defeat to Celtic. Five months on, however, we know this: barring a freak of nature, three of the four semi-finalists in this year's tournament will be from the Premiership. It's enough to make you ask all the basic journalistic questions - what? why? how? - with increasing incredulity, before finding a good pillow to rest your head.
Tonight United certainly presented an emphatic case for their chances of lifting their third European Cup by ripping Roma apart, almost sadistically at times, with the skill of a master swordsman. From the moment Michael Carrick opened the scoring, digging the ball from under his feet and over Doni's head with fatherly tenderness, Sir Alex Ferguson's side played football rarely seen outside a junior schoolboy's fantasies. Every ball was pinged swiftly and accurately from foot-to-foot, every trick seemed to come off, every shot from outside the area seemed to go in. Few teams would have had an answer to the hi-octane flair of Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Cristano Ronaldo, whose argument for being the best attacking player in the world grows stronger by the game. Roma certainly didn't.
Chelsea were slower to reach the burn, but the muscular way they responded to a Fernando Morientes' first-half opener for Valencia was, in a different way, just as impressive as United's 7-1 victory over Roma. On nights like this, Jose Mourinho's side remind you of the Terminator: cold, relentless, overpowering. Even when you blast a hole in their head, they still keep coming. In the end, Michael Essien's late strike settled it, but you could sense their winner was coming from the moment Andriy Shevchenko jabbed home the equaliser.
But it will be United that we - critics, commentators and bloggers - will drool over during the coming days. To humble a side ranked second in Serie A surely places their performance high in the pantheon of the club's great European nights, up there with Lisbon, Wembley, Rotterdam, Turin and Barcelona. The fact they did so with a starting eleven featuring John O'Shea and Darren Fletcher - whose careers have appeared stillborn since 2004 - and Alan Smith, who hitherto had scored twice in his last 63 games - both against Charlton at the Valley - should have us all asking questions too.
The obvious one is this: is the Premier League now definitely superior than La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga? If so, is it because the overwhelming thud of money from Sky, oily oligarchs and fat US sugar daddies is finally telling, or because the European leagues have been temporarily poisoned by the effects of calciopoli (in the case of Serie A) and internal unrest or upheaval (see Barcelona and Real Madrid)? In short, trend or blip?It is perhaps too early to say. But after tonight, those of us who have sneered at the Premiership's more enthusiastic propagandists over the past 15 years may have to concede that, finally, their time has arrived. And, with the obscene amount of cash sloshing around the English game, there's probably more glory nights to come.
posted by PBL at
12:15 p. m.
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