Victorious Milan rivals and Chelsea all march on
Inter Milan, AC Milan and Chelsea all virtually sealed their places in the knockout phase of the Champions League on Wednesday by maintaining their 100 per cent starts with their third successive victories.
Inter Milan, AC Milan and Chelsea all virtually sealed their places in the knockout phase of the Champions League on Wednesday by maintaining their 100 per cent starts with their third successive victories.
Inter Milan were the biggest winners on the night, scoring a sensational 5-1 win over Valencia in Spain in Group G to leave the Spanish club, last season's UEFA Cup winners, in third place and looking unlikely to progress.
Werder Bremen moved on to six points with their 2-1 win at Anderlecht who remain bottom of the group with with no points.
Inter's arch-rivals AC Milan beat Spanish league leaders Barcelona 1-0 in front of 76,000 fans at the San Siro in Group F with Andriy Shevchenko scoring the only goal of the night to move AC Milan on to nine pints.
Barcelona are second with six followed by ambitious Shakhtar Donetsk, who beat Celtic 3-0 at home to move to three points. Celtic are bottom with none.
In Group H Chelsea won for the third time with a 2-0 victory over CSKA Moscow at Stamford Bridge to top the group with nine points to CSKA's four.
Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho was presented with UEFA's Coach of the Year award before that match for leading Porto to the European crown last season, but his old club had another miserable night.
They lost 2-0 at Paris St Germain and look like becoming the first reigning European champions to be eliminated in the opening group phase after the defeat in Paris left them with one point from their opening three matches. PSG have three points after two opening defeats.
Arsenal, who harbour real ambitions of succeeding Porto as European champions, also failed to win, being held to a 2-2 draw by Panathinaikos in Athens to lose top spot in Group E.
PSV Eindhoven, who have never progressed from the group stages in five previous campaigns, won 2-1 at Rosenborg Trondheim to leapfrog above Arsenal and into the lead of the tightly-bunched section by one point.
PSV have six points, Arsenal five, Panathinakos four and Rosenborg one.