Night of Shocks for Madrid, Arsenal, City and Milan

Klass-Act: Huntelaar slots home as Arsenal players watch

Wednesday night Champions League matches provided shocking results for big guns as Real Madrid, AC Milan and Premier League duo Arsenal and Manchester City all suffered losses against their less fancied opponents.

Real Madrid went down 2-1 away to Borussia Dortmund with Robert Lewandowski putting the Bundesliga champions ahead only for Cristiano Ronaldo to level within two minutes. Marcel Schmeizer’s 64^th minute 20-yard volley secured the points for Jurgen Klopp’s side who moved to the summit of Group D with 7 points, one above the La Liga champions who they face in the return leg at the Bernabeu in a fortnight. Madrid’s statistics in German soil makes for a sorry reading as they have played 24 official matches in Germany and won only once.

The three points sees Jurgen Klopp's men take charge of Group D as they move one point above the Spanish side and into pole position ahead of the return fixture at the Santiago Bernabeu in a fortnight.

The other Group D game saw Ajax crush Premier League side Manchester City 3-1 at the Amsterdam Arena. French midfielder Samir Nasri put the visitors ahead midway into the first half but Siem de Jong riffled in the equalizer just before the interval. A goal each from Niklas Moisander and the impressive Christian Eriksen claimed the win for the Dutch side and reignited their hopes of qualifying from the Group of death but put City on the brink of elimination.

Mancini’s side are yet to win a match in the group and will need nothing less than three points against Ajax in the return leg if they are to rekindle their dimming hopes of qualifying to the knockout stages.

The other big gun to fall on the night was Arsenal who lost a group match at the Emirates for the first time in six years. The Gunners were convincingly beaten 2-0 by German side Schalke 04. Both goals came in the last quarter of the second half with Klaas Jan Huntelaar opening the scoring in the 76^th minute and Ibrahim Afellay killing it off in the 86^th minute in a tepid performance by Wenger’s men who made only one shot on target the whole night.

Schalke takes control of the Group on 7 points with Arsenal sitting second with 6 and Olympiakos Piraeus, who beat Montpellier 2-1, third with three points.

AC Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri’s future with the club was put into more scrutiny as they went down 1-0 to Malaga at Estadio La Rosaleda. Jaoquin scored the decisive goal in the 64^th minute to move the Spanish side to within a win of qualifying to the knockout stages. Zenit Saint Petersburg beat Anderlecht with the same scoreline with Aleksandr Kerzhakov slotting in a 72^nd minute penalty.

Porto made it a perfect 3 wins out of three with their 3-2 home win over Dynamo Kiev. Silvestre Varela opened the scoring for Porto at the quarter-hour mark only for Oleh Husyev to restore parity six minutes later. However, a brace from Colombian star Jackson Martinez sandwiched between Aide Brown’s goal for Dynamo gave the Portuguese outfit their third win on the trot as they look very likely to proceed from the group.

Ligue 1 table toppers Paris Saint Germain bounced back from their loss to Porto a fortnight ago with a 2-0 win over Dinamo Zagreb. Swedish hotshot Zlatan Ibrahimovic slot home in the 32^nd minute and Jeremy Menez killed the game before half time as the big-spending side took a giant step towards qualifying to from the Group A.

The return legs of the Group stages will start in two weeks time.

And That's thesteifmastertake!!