Champions League, Hart, Sir Dave Richards

Despite an admirable performance and good result in Hungary last night, Liverpool are out of the Champions League. Fiorentina did enough in Italy to beat Lyon 1-0 and so seal Liverpool's fate, which will be Europa League football after Christmas. It'll be interesting to see how they react now in both the league and when the European games come round again. Benitez has a very good record in 2 legged ties on the continent and will probably now be favourites to win the trophy, although we all know it doesn't always work that way. It's possible they'll face the likes of Valencia, Roma, Sporting, Villareal, Benfica and Werder Bremen, who are all doing well in the competition so far, not to mention the other Champions League 3rd placers (at the moment one of Juventus or Bayern will be there, Marseille and Atletico probably too). That is a shit decent group of names there, which will be topped up by some poorer teams sure, but Liverpool are going to have some job on their hands if they want to win it.

Barcelona beat Inter 2-0 at Camp Nou to put them back on top of group F, and both will be pleased that Rubin could only draw 0-0 at home to Kiev - that result will surely be the one that the Russians will look back on if they don't get through. All that means that the 2 big boys will only need draws to get to the last 16 and complete 2 rather unconvincing qualification campaigns. I was lucky enough to watch the Rangers game last night but I could have had more fun sitting in a dark room for 4 days counting the seconds go by. An impressive Stuttgart team beat the Gers 2-0 at Ibrox thus completing a miserable home campaign this year, that trip to Sevilla will be a lot of fun in 2 weeks. Unirea beat the Andalucians 1-0 last night to leave them in control of that 2nd place, they go to Stuttgart on match day 6 for the big showdown knowing that a draw will be enough. Finally in group H Arsenal beat Liege 2-0 at the Grove to clinch qualification and top spot, (the only team to do so I might add) but the win came at a price. The injury gods weren't satisfied with their work during the international break, oh no, if Gibbs didn't break his foot in Lithuania then he certainly did last night. It was frankly a shit tackle from some twat and now the kid will miss 3 months of football, great. Gallas and Arshavin tried their best to kill each other in the air in a challenge that left Gallas subbed and Arshavin's head pissing with blood, both should be fine for Chelski though.

Onto tonight's action then. Group A, Bordeaux are already though thanks to their tactical mastermind Laurent Blanc (France job for him?), the wonderful Gorcuff and the Chamakahattack. That means we will lose either Juventus or Bayern at the group stage, the Italians in control with 8 points and Bayern with work to do on 4. The two sides meet in 2 weeks in Turin so Bayern will be praying that they can close that gap tonight to get in touch. Group B, Utd are through and will be as winners if they can better Wolfsburg's result, they have a cracking game in Moscow tonight which if they lose then CSKA will draw level on points with the Germs. Like the titans in group F, the big teams in group C are struggling a little and this group remains wide open. Madrid, Milan, Marseille and Zurich can all still qualify but it's the 2 superpowers who remain in control at this stage. Finally group D is all done and dusted in terms of qualification, Chelsea and Porto are through, all that remains to be decided is who takes top spot. Chelsea go to Portugal tonight which is a difficult place to go, I imagine we'll see a draw.

Paul Hart was last night sacked as Portsmouth boss with the club sat adrift at the bottom of the league with just 7 points. I suppose if any manager 'deserves' to be sacked then it should be the one doing the worst job, but you can't help but feel sorry for the man. If you look at his career he's had great success at youth level, helping bring through players like Woodgate, Jenas, Reid and Dawson at small clubs with poor resources. He was in fact promoted from within at Pompey, in charge of the youth setup there and then called into the front line to take charge when Tony Adams left. He's had so many great players sold from above his head - Diarra (£20m), Johnson (£18m), Crouch, Defoe, Muntari, Kranjcar and probably more that I can't think of off the top of my head. And was he given that money to spend? No. It underlines what a terrific fall from grace that Pompey have had. They won the cup in 2008 and had AC Milan coming to Fratton Park in the UEFA Cup. Harry Redknapp must have known there was a hurricane coming his way and jumped ship to Spurs, and left the shit storm to blow up in Adams' and Hart's faces. Not to mention all the nonsense off the pitch with players not being paid, Peter Storrie going to court over fraud charges and having an owner for 5 minutes then realising, he's got no money, so selling it to another owner who probably has no money. It really is a bit of a disaster down there. The bookies favourite to take over is Darren Ferguson and there's also old Avram Grant in the mixer who has just returned to the club as Football Director. Whoever it is, they've got a mountain to climb.

Finally today, the England World Cup 2018 bid is turning into a big of shambles - they obviously want to make Pompey look good. A couple weeks back the board and 'team' were rejigged and a few people got sacked, and now the Chairman Sir Dave Richards has resigned his post. Couldn't have done it 2 weeks ago Dave? The whole bid is looking doomed before it's even really begun - Jack Warner has already had a pop at us, and we're going to need that crazy bastard's CONCACAF support. It's a shocker really that we created the game and have only had the thing once. Especially when shit teams like Chile, Uruguay and Sweden have had it, and Mexico, France, Italy, Germany and Brazil will have all had it twice by the time 2018 comes around. Absolute disgrace. I know it's the WORLD cup and it has to go different places but that really is poor, these days, it's all political. Take her easy.