UCL Matchday 2 - Part II

The first matchday brought a lot of excitement and controversy - primarily surrounding Manchester clubs United and City, who both fared poorly in the day's action. Despite missing many of their first team stars, many people, including myself, thought United would take all three points at home to Basel without a problem. In the end, they were fortunate to gain a point, with Young's late header saving the day. United's major problem is their weakness at the back, and their enormous scoring output at the beginning of the season only masked their defensive weaknesses. Conceding three goals to an unfancied Basel side at home is a very poor result, and as SAF said, is a true wake-up call to United. They cannot defend like this much longer and expect to continue to sit at the top of the table. City's problems are both on the field and off it, and it's such a dramatic mess that I don't even want to talk about it much. All I have to say is, Tevez needs to go, and I would kick Mancini out the door with him if I could get Mourinho. That all remains to be seen though.
I surprised myself a bit by getting six out of eight positive selections from yesterday's games, only foiled by United's stinker and Inter's win in Russia. I thought that slate of games was a bit more unpredictable, but we'll see. Headlining the day's action is Valencia and Chelsea in Spain, which marks Juan Mata's return to his former employers. The Blues should be far too strong for this Valencia side, despite their good form. Arsenal - Olympiakos has upset potential because of the Gunner's recent weak form, but it's going to be tough for the Greeks to get a point. BATE is 21-1 odds to take down Barcelona, and while I think the Catalans will win, I think it could be far closer than the odds suggest. Here's the picks for Wednesday:

Zenit - Porto: DRAW
AC Milan - Viktoria Plzen: HOME WIN
Arsenal - Olympiakos: HOME WIN
BATE Borisov - Barcelona: AWAY WIN
Bayer Leverkusen - Genk: HOME WIN
Marseille - Dortmund: DRAW
Shakhtar - APOEL: HOME WIN
Valencia - Chelsea: AWAY WIN