French champions Marseille smashed Manchester United 8-2 in a pre-season encounter in Monaco on Tuesday night. Goals by Nicolas Nkoulou, Alou Diarra and a double from Loic Remy, Jordan Ayew (pictured) and Benoit Cheyrou sent the Red Devils to their most humiliating defeat under Sir Alex Ferguson. Admittedly, the Premier League champions were without a [.

The importance of being Carrick is a post from: Just Football

Michael Carrick is a much-maligned figure at Manchester United these days. Football fans always have at least one silently nominated yet widely acknowledged fall guy, and at Old Trafford this season that honour appears to have been bestowed upon the quiet Geordie number 16.

It's always nice when multi-tasking players like Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid) and Benoit Cheyrou (Olympique de Marseille) take hold of the Thursday Thigh-Off responsibilities for us, insisting we're too pretty and dainty to bother lifting a finger. Very considerate of them.

Of course, with the immense quadly goodness on display today, picking a winner may be harder than attempting a drive by of the Printemps shoe department during your lunch hour.

Aaron Ramsey struck two minutes into added time to give Arsenal an important 1-0 win at Marseille's Stade Velodrome that puts them in control of Champions League Group F.

After a largely dispiriting 90 minutes in which both sides struggled to create clear-cut chances, substitute Ramsey controlled an accidental flick-on from Gervinho and placed his shot low past Steve Mandanda to give Arsene Wenger's side a fifth win in six games in all competitions.

Before anyone says "WTF happened?"

Man Utd's team cobbled together the youth brigade and a few veterans with Fabien Barthez installed as custodian in a match organized by Pascal Olmeta for his children's charity. Tom Cleverley, Danny Welbeck, Chris Smalling, and Phil Jones with veterans Park Ji Sung and Patrice Evra gave a pretty decent account of themselves in the first half against an Olympique Marseilles boasting their regular starters.

Arsenal travel to the Stade Velodrome tonight in a champions league clash against Group F leaders Marseille. The Gunners go into this match knowing that anything less than a win could seriously hamper their chances of moving onto the next stage.

However things do not look too good for Arsenal as number of their key players are major doubts for the fixture.