Arsenal and Bayern Munich
Arsenal, whilst eliminated, gave a performance against Bayern you might classify as satisfactory or creditable. They suffered from the absence of Szczesny, Wilshere, Ramsay, Walcott and Gibbs who might have narrowed the contest even more. Whereas, though you cannot seen any deficiency in Bayern, the Gunners lack a towering defensive midfielder in the style of Patrick Vieira and an absolutely world class striker like a Thierry Henry. They have a surfeit of offensive midfielders, Cazorla, Arteta, Wishere Ramsay, Rozicky and Ozil. Arsene Wenger tends to buy this type of player than address the overall make up. He is a most reluctant buyer of keepers and must rue he did not buy Mark Schwarzer two seasons ago, who was desperate to come to the Emirates.
As for Bayern, they are 20 points clear inthe Bundesliga. If they beat Bayer Leverkusen over the weekend they will have notched up 50 games without loss. Milan hold the Europan league record at 58. The German club was however rocked bythe distinct possibility that club legend Uli Hoeness could get a 7 year stretch for tax evasion, having 33m euros in undeclared income and evaded €3.3m in taxes. The strange, and so far unexplained, part of the story is how he amassed such a fortune as he did not play in era of high wages, nor did he have significant transfers. He retired from his one club Bayern (save for a brief period at Nurnberg) to become their General Manager and President. He said he gambled on foreign currency, but where did he get the funds so to do in the first place?