GERMANY WERE LUCKY

Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer is of the opinion that the German team were extremely fortunate to progress into the quarter-finals of the Champions League after losing 2-0 to Premier league opponents Arsenal in the second leg. Despite this defeat, the German club progressed to the next round on the away goals rule. However, things would have been extremely difficult for them had they conceded another goal from Arsenal in the final few minutes. Bayern came into the match on the back of a commanding 3-1 lead on aggregate from the first leg.

As a result, many were of the opinion that the work was almost done for the German club. It was extremely easy to see the complacency in Bayern Munich’s play from the start. Arsenal almost immediately took advantage of it through a goal from Oliver Giroud. However, they were unable to find the second goal that would equalise the tie on aggregate until the 86th minute when the defender Laurent Koscielny scored from a corner. It gave Arsenal a huge hope that they could make the unlikeliest comebacks in the history of the competition.

However, Bayern held on to see them progress into the quarter-finals where they will be facing the Italian champions Juventus.

“I don’t think we were at our best today and a lot of things didn’t go right for us. We’re lucky we built up such a lead in London. If we hadn’t won 3-1 there then we wouldn’t have gone through. However, as a professional you have to accept that sometimes games like this can go wrong because there are lot of quality teams playing on a level with one another. We have to learn from this and take the experience into future matches,” said the goalkeeper, who has been one of the main reasons for the spectacular defensive record of Bayern this season.

TOURE BACKS ROTATION

The Manchester City defender Kolo Toure has said that he is in support of the rotation policy adopted by the Ivory Coast manager Sabri Lamouchi at the 2013 African cup of nations. The Ivory Coast is certainly under pressure to win this tournament after coming extremely close to doing so in the last few years. Ivory Coast have not managed to be crowned as the African champions in 1992. The star players like Didier Drogba and Kolo Toure are coming to the end of their careers, which has increased the pressure on the team to deliver this trophy.

The coach Sabri Lamouchi has adopted a policy to protect his players in the group stages of the tournament by rotating them frequently. This has raised questions amongst the media, but the defender Kolo Toure was supportive of the manager by saying that rotation was necessary in order to deal with the huge number of games. Kolo Toure was on the bench for the match against Tunisia on Saturday. The captain Didier Drogba was also put on the bench by the manager, but the Elephants managed to win this match 3-0 in the end. Touré has said that the players do not mind being rested because they only want to win the trophy.

“That’s great for us. The most important thing is that we lift the trophy. It doesn’t matter who plays and who doesn’t play. We want to go back home with this trophy. We have such great players in Ivory Coast, it’s very important to give them a chance to play and the guys that came into the team were unbelievable. It was a fantastic performance from the team. We played as a group. In the first game we won but didn’t play very well,” said the defender Kolo Toure after the match.

BARRY SAVES CITY

The Premier league champions Manchester City looked on course for dropping yet more points in the recent match against Reading. However, a stoppage time goal by the midfielder Gareth Barry helped them keep in touch with the leaders United. This has been yet another match in which City have looked well below par. Last season, the club were extremely brilliant due to the arrival of players like Sergio Aguero. The Spaniard David Silva was also at his best, but this season has been totally different because the team has been unable to find the same level of fluency.

They have also conceded a lot of goals in recent times as well, which has led to question marks being asked about the goalkeeper Joe Hart. Despite these problems, the defender Kolo Toure reckons that the club are displaying the same level of spirit that he saw in the Arsenal team that managed to go through an entire Premier league season undefeated. The 2003-04 season saw Arsenal finish as the champions after going undefeated throughout the season, and Kolo Toure was part of that team. The 31-year-old has linked with a move from Manchester City, but he recently committed his future with the Premier league champions despite not being a first-team regular.

“We know that every game we play here, teams are going to come and defend – so we need to be patient. It is really important to be calm because we know we can score at any time, we have so many ­attacking players who are ­capable of scoring. We keep believing that we will score and it’s a belief that comes from the quality players we have. It was the same at Arsenal, that team who were the ‘Invincibles’,” said Toure, who has been included in the Ivory Coast squad for the African cup of nations.