England Watch: Keeping Tabs On Italy's Champions League Opposition

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A young John Terry looks on as former Chelsea boss Claudio Ranieri speaks (PA)

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Teams

• Arsenal
• Chelsea
• Man Utd.

Players

• Robin Van Persie
• Vassiriki Diaby
• Petr Cech
• Wayne Rooney
• Ryan Giggs
• Michael Ballack

The countdown has started! Only over a month to go before English and Italian sides will square off in the Champions League.

Arsenal will take on Roma, reigning European and world champions Manchester United will face Inter and Chelsea will clash with Juventus. Which sides will prevail and go through? Will one nation overpower the other? We will lead you to the event by monitoring the health status of the contenders after every official game.

Here we go…

WHAT HAPPENED?

Manchester United 3-0 Chelsea (Vidic, Rooney, Berbatov): The Red Devils reinstated themselves as favourites to win a third Premier League title in succession with a resounding win over Chelsea. They never really looked under threat from the Blues, who were careless in defence and impotent in attack.

Arsenal 1-0 Bolton Wanderers (Bendtner): The Gunners were not at their best, to say the least. It took a late goal to see them sneak past Bolton. They had the better of the play, but as is so often the case, they struggled to win, even against a weaker opponent.

TOP & FLOP

Manchester United: Ryan Giggs put in an amazing performance from an unusual position and showed he can still perform for nigh-on 90 minutes in the big games. There were no flops from the champions, but Sir Alex Ferguson will be worried by Wayne Rooney's abuse of the referee, which could get him in trouble on a big European night.

Chelsea: There was very little good to take from the game for Chelsea, but Petr Cech looks to be getting somewhere back to his best. Meanwhile, Michael Ballack put in a very poor performance, making defensive errors from set-pieces and also failing to make an impact going forward.

Arsenal: Robin van Persie is free of injury and looks to be hitting top form. Though he did not score, he hit the post and was a constant menace. His technique and skill make him extremely hard to contain. Meanwhile, Abou Diaby was disappointing attempting to fill in for Cesc Fabregas in midfield.

TREATMENT TABLE

Manchester United: There were no fresh injury concerns after the game against Chelsea. Paul Scholes and Wes Brown remain injured, while Rio Ferdinand will see a specialist about his chronic back injury.

Chelsea: Deco was withdrawn early on, but it's unclear whether this was due to his poor performance or because he was carrying an injury.  Florent Malouda has hamstring issues and Michael Essien is, of course, a long-term absentee.

PRESS ROOM SOUND BITES

Manchester United, Ferguson: "As we said all along, we’ve got all the main teams at home, we really need to win those games. We’ve got the first one out the road, but we’ve got some tough games coming up."

Chelsea, Scolari: "I think it’s done big damage, very big damage [to our confidence] because we didn’t come here to play for this situation."

Arsenal, Wenger: "We were solid defensively and now we have won 1-0 three times, which is a good basis. We must just take it game by game because every match is difficult."

Sulmaan Ahmad, Goal.com