Welcome to Wednesday night, fellow football fans! Or as I call it: Thursday night (I’m off Friday).

We’re going minute-by-minute as usual for all the night’s Champions League action, with a special thescore.ie focus on Manchester City’s trip to Amsterdam. Yesh.

Let’s have those predictions and betting tips. It’s the end of the month, I’m hungry/shoeless and there’s a Harp Lager beer mat in my windscreen instead of a tax disc.

Wanna feel old? Danny Blind’s son is playing tonight. Well holy, God. Here’s the rest of the line-ups at the Amsterdam Arena.

Ajax: Vermeer, Alderweireld, Moisander, Blind, Van Rhijn, Poulsen, Eriksen, De Jong, Schøne, Sana, Babel

Subs: Cillessen, Veltman, Dijks, Enoh, Sulejmani, Boerrigter, Fischer.

Manchester City: Hart, Richards, Kompany, Lescott, Clichy, Milner, Nasri, Barry, Yaya Touré, Dzeko, Aguero

Subs: Pantilimon, Kolarov, Nastasić, Evans, Sinclair, Tévez, Balotelli.

And of course Arsenal welcome Bundesliga outfit Schalke to north London. Here’s are their teams. You’re welcome.

Arsenal: Mannone, Vermaelen, Mertesacker, André Santos, Jenkinson, Arteta, Ramsey, Santi Cazorla, Coquelin, , Gervinho, Podolski

Subs: Shea, Koscielny, Djourou, Gnabry, Giroud, Arshavin, Chamakh

Schalke: Unnerstall, Höwedes, Holtby, Fuchs, Uchida, Matip, Höger, Neustädter, Afellay, Huntelaar, Farfán

Subs: Hildebrand, Kolasinac, JJones, Barnetta, Moritz, Draxler, Marica

Need some pre-match reading? Check out all our previews of tonight’s action here.

Meanwhile, Dutch police have confirmed they’ve made 25 arrests in the red light district of the city in the lead-up to game.

So while the real football is up and running across Europe (there’s been a goal in Russia) – the Ferdinand brothers have broken their silence.

Ooof! Eriksen is a tasty player and he’s just lashed one wide from inside the 18-yard line. Man City are once again finding it very difficult to hang on to the ball and after they gave it away cheaply again, the hosts moved up field and almost found an opening. This is wide open so far.

GOAL! Ajax 0 Manchester City 1 Nasri , 21′ First real attack and they score. James Milner drives forward through the middle, plays it left to Nasri from the D and the French playmaker places it in the far corner.

It comes against the run of play though. Ajax were playing some absolutely lovely patterns throughout the pitch and the Premier League champions look heavy-legged and one-dimensional.  Liveblogger’s curse… as I suppose. Let’s see how the hosts react now.

Given the open start to the tie, this has settled down big time. City are more or less 4-4-2 as far as I can see with Nasri out on the left while Ajax’s enthusiasm seems to be have curbed somewhat by that sucker-punch.

It’s over in St Petersburg… or as Jimmy Magee calls it: Leningrad.

GOAL! Ajax 1 Manchester City 1, De Jong, 44′ And not we have a game. Truthfully that well-struck half-volley from the edge of the box is little more than the hosts deserve. the whistle has gone and the teams are trotting in all square. What did you make of that?

Hypothetical: who do you think would win in a game of 3-a-side? The Sky Sports panel of Souness, Gullit and Redknapp? Or RTE’s trio – Dunphy, Giles and Houghton?

We’re up and running in Amsterdam and Aguero almost wormed his way through a dodgy-looking Ajax defence already.

Man, seeing Dennis Bergkamp is bitter sweet. (He never calls)

GOAL! Ajax 2 City 1 Moisander 58′ That is absolutely woegious defending. A straightforward corner-free-header job as City fail to man either post. Dortmund and Real has kicked off for the second half a good few minutes late meanwhile. Insert Ronaldo-mirror joke here.

“‘Moisander, with a name like a Scandanavian detective, may have solved the case for Ajax.’ George Hamilton, never change” writes our colleague Niall Kelly at home in his jim-jams next to the fire.

It’s very good to know that George is a fan of Wallander, The Killing, The Bridge and the Stieg Larsson trilogy however.

The Killing’s Sarah Lund. Prefers Stephen Alkin to George Hamilton.

GOAL! Ajax 3 Man City 1 Christian Eriksen, 68′ The Dane dances along the edge of the box before shooting past Joe Hart. It flew past the England keeper via Clichy’s studs, admittedly. Moments later Hart makes a great save to keep City’s fading hopes alive. In Germany, Dortmund score to go ahead against Real.

Roberto Mancini — who must now be feeling the pressure under his blue and white scarf — gets out his shepherd’s crook and drags off the one-speed Gareth Barry. Carlos Tevez agrees to go on, which is nice. 71 minutes.

City should really be back in this but Dzeko couldn’t find a away past Vermeer from a few feet out. the home ‘keeper stood tall and the Bosnian blasted it against him rather than square for a team-mate.

GOAL! Arsenal 0 Schalke 1 Huntelaar, 76′ By all accounts, that’s been coming. The Dutch striker has broken the deadlock at the Emirates. Back in Amsterdam, Mario Balotelli is on in place of Milner in what looks like desperate, kitchen-sink stuff from Mancini, in truth.

Goal! Arsenal 0-2 Schalke (Afellay, 86) Dear me. I hope the British press have a few of those ‘English game in crisis’ pieces on file. I’m not watching the action at the Emirates but Simon Burnton of the Guardian writes:

Finally someone realises that Farfán likes to cross the ball low across the six-yard box, and gets themselves a tap-in. Yet another attack down the right, yet again André Santos is nowhere near Farfán, and it’s all too easy as he slides the ball across goal and Afellay arrives at the far post to knock it into a gaping goal.

And it’s all over at the Amsterdam Arena. Man City have been taught a lesson by Frank de Boer’s young Eredivisie side, and they now lie bottom of the pool half-way through the fixtures. The interview with Mancini should be lively.

Dunphy and Giles are gone in two-footed on Man City. Eamon reckons they’re up against rubbish in the Premier League, Mancini isn’t up to the job and the structures are wrong. Ray Houghton is the lucky man in between the veteran pair and he agrees the Italian’s tactics are flawed. What do you reckon?

“In the Premier League, I could score goals,” says Dunphy, who is in flying form this evening again.

Somewhere in Dublin, Bill O’Herlihy is smiling ruefully behind a high-ball of brandy.

His stand-in Darragh Maloney pulls Dunphy: “I’m not comfortable with you calling Mancini a clown, he won the Premier League”.

Dunphy: “Come on, it’s only television.” He then moves on to his next target.

So that’s your lot. We now know that the Premier League champions are a bunch of delinquents who are up against rubbish every week and their manager is a ‘clown’. Thank you, RTE. Keep the comments coming… like Dunphy himself used to say in his radio days, we read them all and appreciate all the feedback.

Disclaimer: (I don’t read them all and I hate feedback)