Brilliant Arsenal, not so brilliant Manchester United and brave Celtic
Filed in archive Champions League by Graham Fisher on March 5, 2008

Arsenal produced a wonderful performance to beat Milan 2-0 in the San Siro and march on to the quarter finals of the Champions League.
It wasn't just a great result, it was thoroughly deserved as they often outplayed the hosts after the early stages of the game.
As time went by there was an uneasy feeling that Arsenal's failings in front of goal in both the first leg and this game may cost them. As they continued to dominate for long periods they just couldn't produce an end result.
Six minutes from time Arsenal finally got the goal their play deserved when Cesc Fabrigas fired home from fully thirty yards. There was still time for Adebayor to score a second and make up for his miss at the end of the first game, when he tapped in after great work from Theo Walcott.
This game marked the end of an era, possibly for Milan's ageing squad and definitely for Paulo Maldini who is retiring at the end of this season with five winners medals.
An excellent match report can be found here.
Manchester United produced a great result but not such a great performance as they 'limped' into the quarter finals.
A 1-0 win at home to Lyon was enough to see them through after their 1-1 draw in France. Things started well for United and they were clearly the better side in the first half without ever looking at their best. It took them until the 41st minute to take the lead when christiano ronaldo
fired home his 30th goal in 30 games.Anyone who thought the second half would see United control the game and ease to qualification was sadly disappointed. A nervy and disjointed performance saw many United fans biting their finger nails long before the end. Lyon didn't manage to produce much in front of goal but Keita did strike a post with Van Der Sar beaten.
United hung on, and Rooney should have given them an undeserved second goal when he intercepted a poor back pass.
Sir Alex will be pleased to have got through this one and will try to forget it as soon as possible and move on.
Celtic had an almost impossible task to recover from a 2-3 deficit against Barcelona at the Camp Nou. It was made totally impossible when Xavi put the home side 1-0 in the third minute.
Barcelona dominated the game and Celtic defended well. It was a damage limitation exercise for the Hoops who fielded a defensive side and formation. In terms of limiting any damage, they achieved well, but they never really looked as though they thought they could get anything out of the game.
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