A hat-trick from Didier Drogba and a brace from Peter Crouch gave the English sides Chelsea and Liverpool victory over Levski Sofia and Galatasaray respectively on Wednesday in their Champions League matches.
Chelsea saw off Levski 3-1 while Liverpool -- the 2004 champions -- had to withstand a late Turkish comeback to win 3-2 to give British clubs a highly satisfactory week in the Champions League with five wins from five.
However, it was quite the reverse for Italian clubs as both Inter Milan and AS Roma were defeated, Inter -- Italian champions by default following the demotion of Juventus over the matchfixing scandal -- reduced to nine men being beaten 2-0 by Bayern Munich and Roma losing 2-1 away at Valencia.
PHOTO: AP
It was Bayern's first win in Italy in seven matches dating back to 1988.
While Valencia maintained their unbeaten start to the season their Spanish title rivals and Champions League titleholders Barcelona left it late to draw 1-1 away at Werder Bremen, Argentinian teenager Lionel Messi scoring with a minute remaining.
That leaves Barca two points adrift of bitter Champions League rivals Chelsea, who they face on October 18, with both sides having eliminated each other one apiece over the past two seasons.
Drogba's hat-trick -- his first for Chelsea in the competition and second in his career in the Champions League -- once again showed up in rather painful fashion the lack of goals and morale from his 30 million pounds strike partner Andriy Shevchenko.
Indeed the Ukrainian superstar -- with just one goal in five matches for the Blues in the Premiership -- could only show a bloodied face after being elbowed in the first-half.
However despite the victory manager Jose Mourinho, who has stoutly defended Shevchenko, was not totally satisfied with all his players despite it being the first time that Chelsea had scored three goals in the Champions League.
"We have six points and lead our Champions League group and lead the Premiership, but we still have players with space to improve," Mourinho said.
"When we are winning 3-0 we have to keep a better control of the game. Petr Cech had to make four or five saves," he said.
Crouch was once again in the goals -- a splendid contrast to the player who struggled so depressingly in last year's campaign -- and scored a candidate for goal of the season with his second a superb volley that almost defied belief.
The normally unflappable Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez admitted he had been on the edge of his seat as Gala launched their comeback.
"After that [20 minutes] we had some problems. After the third goal -- an amazing goal -- they knew it was finished and so they were going forward with all their players and it was difficult for us to control," Benitez said.
"But for sure I wasn't thinking about the Champions League final. I was thinking about how to score a fourth goal and win the game," he said.
Inter's defeat makes it an uphill task for the Italian giants to qualify with no points to show from their first two matches but their coach Roberto Mancini remained defiant.
"The defeat this evening was a lie," he said defiantly.
"We were controlling the match until Zlatan Ibrahimovic [Fabio Grosso was to follow him for an early shower] was sent off and the first goal could have been avoided. But there are four games left to play in the group and we will qualify in second place," the former Italy international striker said.
His Roma counterpart, Luciano Spalletti, believed that his side's narrow defeat to Valencia was a missed opportunity to grab three points.
"In the first half we played good football," Spalletti said.
"However in the second we didn't play as well. But even if it is down to inexperience we are going to have to learn fast," he said.
That could certainly be words echoed by Mancini but for British clubs it appears that they are well over the learning curve.
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