Mark Hughes had made mistakes, of that there is no doubt. But I felt to sack the Welshman just 18 months into his tenure was hasty.

Manchester City's owners had begun to get twitchy over the past few weeks, with the club's 1-1 home draw with Hull City on November 28 setting alarm bells ringing. Despite being just six points off the Champions League places in sixth position, a run of draws and last Wednesday's comprehensive 3-0 defeat to Tottenham proved unacceptable to the owners.

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The Champions League last-16 draw has thrown up a couple of crackers.

Coach Jose Mourinho will face his former club Chelsea for the first time with Inter Milan. As if that wasn't enough, David Beckham will return to Old Trafford to play against Manchester United for AC Milan. Read more...

Felipe Melo was meant to be one of the missing links in the Juventus team, a man capable of transforming the Bianconeri into title challengers.

A US$30 million signing from Fiorentina, the Brazilian international was one of Juve's two big summer signings, with fellow countryman Diego the other.

So far, Melo has flopped, and to cap off a miserable first four months of the season, he has now won the Bidone d'Oro (Golden Bin), a prize commemorating the worst signing of the season in Italy. He polled 22.87% of the vote.

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Liverpool were never seriously linked with Andrey Arshavin before he made his move from Zenit Saint Petersburg to Arsenal last January. But he is exactly the kind of player the Reds needed.

He demonstrated this fact again on Sunday with an explosive second-half effort to seal a 2-1 win for Arsenal at Anfield.

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