Going up
Inter: The 2023 finalists are second in the table and yet to concede a goal. They are yet to score many, either, notching just seven goals in their five games. The latest victims of Simone Inzaghi’s smooth, efficient machine were RB Leipzig, whose own disastrous pointless campaign continued with a 1-0 defeat. An own goal from Castello Lukeba decided it after a wicked free-kick from Federico Dimarco, the wing-back playing an unfamiliar midfield role but was just as dangerous. As Leipzig desperately chased something from the match to rescue their campaign, it fell to the Inter defence to show off their usual control, the experience of Benjamin Pavard, Stefan de Vrij and Alessandro Bastoni as the defensive trio seeing out the job in some comfort.
Arsenal: What a difference Martin Ødegaard makes to Arsenal. With their Norwegian playmaker, they are a wholly different proposition to the team that was struggling for its identity without him. His return has brought an instant – and stark – change. Sporting beat Manchester City 4-1 last time out, and despite the change of manager after Ruben Amorim’s departure, João Pereira is working with the same squad that has been so impressive in this season’s competition. In Lisbon on Tuesday, they were taken apart, with Bukayo Saka looking far more dangerous with Ødegaard prompting him. “We can see since he’s back we are better,” said William Saliba. “He’s top three [in the world].”
Atalanta: Last season’s Europa League winners are thriving, despite a small squad and the demands to sell their best players. Teun Koopmeiners now lines up for Juventus, having been sold for €54.7m, but Gian Piero Gasperini will always find a way, as one of the most resourceful and innovative coaches around. Sure, Young Boys, beaten 6-1, have been this season’s, yes, whipping boys but as the 36-team table coalesces into some kind of shape, goals scored are becoming important. The striker Mateo Retegui was reportedly being watched in Berne by Arsenal scouts and duly scored two goals during a rampant four-goal first half. Meanwhile Charles De Ketelaere, a member of the new Belgian generation of talent, scored twice, too and also supplied a hat-trick of assists.
Slipping down
Manchester City: City’s current – unforeseen – downfall continues to break all moulds, on Tuesday proving that drawing a match can actually be worse than losing. The manner of Feyenoord’s comeback from three goals down in 15 minutes was surgical, to which much credit must be offered to the Dutch team. That Pep Guardiola had seen it coming from the moment Josko Gvardiol made the error that handed over the first was made clear by City’s manager placing himself in the brace position. Tortured by his team’s malfunctions, Guardiola ended up scratching his own face in frustration. To continue the precedents – the sheer lack of reality – he ended up having to say he had not meant to “make light of self-harm”. City are fragile, easy to get at, with too many players unfit or untrusted by a manager not used to such losses in form. Why is Kevin De Bruyne still on the bench? What’s happened to Phil Foden? Just what is happening?
Real Madrid: Are the defending champions – the serial champions – in danger? At Anfield, there were more signs the latest Galactico project has achieved little more than Madrid’s megastars becoming distant satellites of each other. Jude Bellingham’s pre-match press call had seen him lay into the English press pack for scapegoating him for England’s Euro 2024 failings only to deliver an anonymous performance. Kylian Mbappé missed a penalty, and even without Vinícius Júnior to get in the way, looked rather less than the main man. Madrid lacked width and wit, Carlo Ancelotti fully out-coached by Arne Slot. This feels like the end of this cycle. At 24th in the table, Madrid are within a whisker of missing out on the playoffs, and will need to win their last three matches to have a squeak of avoiding them by making the top eight.
Paris Saint-Germain: Another team who look to be caught between cycles. If Mbappé is struggling away from his Parisian home, then his former club are struggling without him as a focal point. At Bayern Munich, PSG were let down by Ousmane Dembélé’s lack of discipline, booked for dissent and then a mistimed challenge on Alphonso Davies. Worse still, was the goalkeeping from Matvey Safonov, an absolute flap that dropped the ball into the path of Kim Min-jae to nod in. PSG are two points and a place behind Madrid in the table, wallowing among the minnows and no-hopers. This season’s gamble on youth might offer plenty for the future in the likes of Nuno Mendes, Willian Pacho, João Neves, Bobby Barcola and Warren Zaïre-Emery but the dial is tipped too far one way for immediate success.
A good week for
Conor Bradley, Liverpool: The tackle is a forgotten art in the 21st-century game but at Anfield, the Kop has always appreciated a sturdy challenge. Standing in for Trent Alexander-Arnold, and showing off the capabilities that won him plaudits last season, Bradley’s perfectly aimed first-half slide into and away from Mbappé, taking the ball, had Liverpool fans out of their seats in applause. Bradley, against one of the world’s finest players, in the biggest game yet of his fledgling career had provided a moment to show he would not be bowed by the defending champions. Neither were his Liverpool teammates. Anfield responded, too, delivering one of those nights where sheer noise ends up rocking opponents back on their heels.
Emiliano Martínez, Aston Villa: There is definitely such a thing as a match-winning save. Had Jesús Gil Manzano, the Spanish referee not fallen for Michele Di Gregorio’s theatrics when deciding Villa’s Diego Carlos had fouled the Juventus keeper before Morgan Rogers scored, then Martínez would have taken more plaudits. When the ball rolled across to Francisco Conceição, it seemed the Portuguese winger was destined to score. Martínez, who had begun his evening celebrating a second Lev Yashin award as the world’s best keeper, showed his mettle by somehow clawing it away, millimetres before it crossed the line. He is yet to concede a goal from open play in this year’s competition, a leading reason why his club are in touching distance of the top eight.
Jamie Gittens, Borussia Dortmund: In reaching last year’s final, Dortmund looked to be shedding their status as European football’s leading kindergarten, full of youth, but without the experience to compete. This season has seen them revert at home and abroad, and part of the Dortmund trademark is having a talented Englishman in their midst. To follow Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham comes Gittens, 20, once of Manchester City’s academy and repeating Sancho’s move to Westphalia. Dortmund’s Bundesliga season has been disappointing but Gittens is winning rave reviews. His solo goal against Dinamo Zagreb was a fourth in five Champions League matches. Only one Englishman under 21 has netted more in a single campaign in the competition, that being Alan Smith in Leeds’ run to the semis, way back in 2000-01.
