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Gabriele Marcotti, Senior Writer, ESPN FC
The European soccer weekend has passed, but it’s left us with a ton of things to talk about across the major leagues. In the Premier League, Liverpool edged past Chelsea in a game that honestly showed the best of both sides, while in LaLiga, Real Madrid got another gritty win despite still not looking like the juggernaut everyone expected when Kylian Mbappé joined in the summer.
Elsewhere: Barcelona welcomed back Gavi after a long injury layoff and thrashed Sevilla, Harry Kane scored a hat trick for Bayern Munich to snap his scoring drought, and Arsenal‘s latest red card nightmare may signal something gloomier about their status as title contenders. There were also talking points galore around Tottenham, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayer Leverkusen, Napoli, Manchester United and more.
It’s Monday. Gab Marcotti reacts to the biggest moments in the world of soccer.
Why Arne Slot and Enzo Maresca can both be happy after Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Chelsea
It’s not a surprise that Arne Slot is pleased. Liverpool won 2-1 to stay top of the table, one point ahead of Manchester City, who had beaten Wolves earlier in the day. His decision to initially rest Luis Díaz and Alexis Mac Allister, both of whom had played midweek internationals halfway around the world, was also vindicated. (Darwin Núñez was also benched at the start, but had to come on in the first half following Diogo Jota‘s injury.) Curtis Jones, who replaced Mac Allister, showed that he can more than hang in this midfield, while Cody Gakpo showed, again, he’s a more than viable option out wide.
But what of Enzo Maresca? He said the performance was “very good” and “if there is a way to lose a game, then this is the way.” Is he deluded?
I don’t think so. Not so much for the underlying stats — 58% possession at Anfield is nice, as is all that accurate passing, but it’s only marginally relevant — but for the way Chelsea held together and looked disciplined against a quality opponent. They looked like a team; in other games even when they’ve won, too often it felt it was about their star players doing star player-type things. In fact, their star player, Cole Palmer, was somewhat muted (by his standards, anyway).
And it really shouldn’t have been this way, looking at the personnel. Reece James was making his first appearance of the season, Romeo Lavia and Tosin Adarabioyo their second league starts, Malo Gusto was forced to decamp to left back. And yet the system held, with Liverpool forced to defend for longer stretches than they would have liked.
This may have been Chelsea’s best performance of the season, and it came without three projected regulars Wesley Fofana, Marc Cucurella and Enzo Fernández. The question is how you build on it, especially when you don’t know what you’re going to get in terms of serviceable minutes from James, Fofana and Lavia.
This is part of the challenge for Maresca, who is dealing with the fallout of the club’s “project” that has left him with a young and gifted — albeit poorly assorted and, in some roles, physically frail — squad. He put it best in an interview with Sky Italia over the weekend: “I’m in charge of the sporting side, what I can control is the group of players I have and I know where I want to take them.”
As for Slot, one thing that immediately jumps out is the huge range of options he has. Some coaches insist on working with a core group of 14 or 15 players. Others say they love having two guys for every position. Slot hasn’t weighed in, but the reality is that Liverpool’s potential second XI is as good (and as a experienced) as any in Europe. How’s this: Caoimhín Kelleher — Conor Bradley, Joe Gomez, Jarell Quansah, Kostas Tsimikas — Wataru Endo, Curtis Jones — Federico Chiesa, Harvey Elliott, Cody Gakpo — Darwin Nunez.
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Nicol underwhelmed by Liverpool in win over Chelsea
Steve Nicol shares his frustrations with table-topping Liverpool after Arne Slot’s men claimed a 2-1 win over Chelsea at Anfield.
Slot didn’t rotate much early on, presumably because he wanted to get the chemistry right. But now it feels as if he has options and flexibility, which matters on several fronts. First, it’s obviously a big bonus in terms of navigating a long and fixture-congested season. Second, while some players are inevitably more important than others (Mohamed Salah and Virgil Van Dijk spring to mind), nobody feels indispensable to this side. And finally, while some are loath to discuss it, the size and depth of the squad give the club leverage when it comes to their trio of free agents: Salah, Van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Both Slot and Maresca are new to their jobs. Both can be pleased with what they saw this weekend, but Slot, clearly, is well ahead, mainly because he landed at a more stable (and better run) club. My colleague Rob Palmer — standing in for Julien Laurens on Monday’s “Gab+Juls Show” — put it best. I’m paraphrasing here, but in essence Slot is an interior decorator who moved some furniture around and changed some of the decor in a solid, well-built, already beautiful home; Maresca arrived on a building site and had to get to work with lumber, concrete and glass, building from scratch.
Despite win, all is not well at Real Madrid … and not just because of Ancelotti’s tactical tweaks
Carlo Ancelotti has talked all season along about finding “balance,” and it’s not hard to see why. For all the attacking riches in the shape of Kylian Mbappe, Vinícius Júnior, Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo, these are four players who all tend to gravitate to the left. Throw in the fact that work off the ball isn’t always a priority — especially for the first two — and it’s not hard to see how he’d be tempted to tinker with his formation.
Saturday, away to Celta, a 3-4-2-1 formation that meant Rodrygo was dropped, Bellingham was deployed on the right and Aurélien Tchouaméni operated as a third centre back. Real Madrid won 2-1, but don’t let that fool you. One goal was a ridiculous individual effort from Mbappe, while the other came courtesy of a genius assist from substitute Luka Modric who, at 39 — and officially Madrid’s oldest-ever player — can only be counted on so often. Celta won the xG battle (1.82 to 0.74) and Thibaut Courtois (him again …) had to make two out-of-this-world saves: one from Williot Swedberg, one from Jonathan Bamba.
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Marcotti: All is not well at Real Madrid
Gab Marcotti believes that Real Madrid are struggling to hit their peak so far this season.
One poor performance isn’t reason enough to shelve the “back three” experiment, but I’m not sure Madrid have the personnel in terms of sheer numbers to keep this up all year (unless they make moves in January and, remember, they still have to find a solution to Dani Carvajal‘s absence). That said, he has to try to something.
Ancelotti took it on the chin on Saturday, blaming himself for “not explaining the system well enough to the players.” Maybe he’ll have time to explain it better ahead of the Clasico this Saturday.
The other glaring takeaway is that while Mbappe (despite his well-chronicled off-the-pitch issues) seemed focused, hard-working and unselfish, Bellingham looked grumpy and off the pace. He has yet to find the right chemistry with his teammates up front, and strops like the one he threw after Vinícius did not find him at the far post in the first half don’t help build team chemistry.
Rumors of Harry Kane’s demise are greatly exaggerated, but don’t let a big win over Stuttgart fool you
There’s nothing better than a hat trick to silence the doubters, and Harry Kane did just that, hitting the net three times in Bayern’s 4-0 win over Stuttgart. The goals ended a drought that lasted — including his England appearance — nearly 400 minutes, which is an eternity for a center-forward of his calibre considering the sort of service he usually gets. It’s probably not a coincidence that the spell coincided with Bayern dropping points in three games and England not exactly ripping it up against Finland.
The big win against an overachiever-turned-pretender like Stuttgart is even better news than Kane’s hat trick, obviously, but Vincent Kompany will want to treat this game as a learning opportunity. For much of the first half, Bayern were stifled and looked very uncomfortable. João Palhinha, who came on for the injured Aleksandar Pavlovic (he’ll miss time with a broken collarbone) looked like a foreign object. The forwards were imprecise, the movement slack. It was only Kane’s long-range wonder strike that broke the deadlock, well into the second half, before Bayern’s greater individual quality made all the difference.
You can’t just explain this away with the absence of Jamal Musiala, either. The worst thing Kompany could do at this stage is rest on his laurels.
Red cards loom large for Arsenal, at Bournemouth and in title challenge too
OK, Premier League referee boss Howard Webb fiddling on his phone with an old-school wired earpiece while William Saliba‘s challenge on Evanilson went to VAR was not a good look. Maybe put the phone away during the game, or don’t sit in the stands if you’re going to use it during crucial moments, but make no mistake about it. Given where the foul was committed and where the covering defenders were, that’s a red card every day of the week — and with good reason. It’s precisely what we don’t want to see: a foul denying a clear goal-scoring opportunity.
Yet when stuff like this happens, you need to react. Arsenal weren’t great — they were missing Bukayo Saka in addition to Martin Odegaard — but they still carved out two very good chances, which Mikel Merino (making his first start) and Gabriel Martinelli missed. Then again, they were also outwitted on Ryan Christie‘s set-piece routine — maybe slow down on the whole “set-piece coach” genius thing for a while — and gave away a needless penalty to win the game. Andoni Iraola is one of the most underrated coaches around, but Mikel Arteta is correct when he says: “We kicked ourselves in the foot.” And he wasn’t just talking about Saliba or Leandro Trossard‘s awful backpass that played him into trouble, either.
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Will Arsenal’s discipline cost them the Premier League title?
Gab Marcotti and Rob Palmer discuss Arsenal’s disciplinary record after William Saliba’s red card against Bournemouth.
Saliba will now miss the Liverpool game, which is pretty much a six-pointer if you fancy yourself a title contender. More to the point, it’s still October, and this is Arsenal’s third red card of the season. Each has cost them points, and each was largely avoidable. (Arsenal are not a dirty side!) What’s more, in the past decade, nobody has won the league while clocking more than three red cards.
Quick hits
10. Gavi returns as Barcelona romp to 5-1 win: You didn’t have to be a “cule” to get that tiny bit emotional seeing Pedri trot to the sideline and give Gavi the armband as he made his first appearance in 11 months. We can fret about where he’s going to play when he regains match sharpness, but wherever it is, it’s going to be a huge addition. Even if he’s sharing time, at least initially, with the current regulars, it’s going to be a crucial boost in a season where load management and rotating are critical. On the pitch, Sevilla were blown with three first-half goals — including two from Robert Lewandowski, who now has 14 in 12 games in all competitions — and there was even time for the youngster Pablo Torre to come on and grab a couple. Barcelona are playing with total confidence and fluidity right now — keyed by Raphinha, who is arguably playing the best football of his career — though if you’re going to nitpick, at some point they’ll need to address the high defensive line. Sevilla could have punished them, and better teams with better forwards will, but that’s a concern for another time.
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How Hansi Flick has revived Robert Lewandowski at Barcelona
Alejandro Moreno and Steve Nicol discuss Robert Lewandowski’s form after Barcelona’s 5-1 win vs. Sevilla.
9. Lessons learned for Ange Postecoglou and Tottenham: Like reading the game correctly and taking off your main creative threat in midfield (James Maddison) for someone less gifted, but more physical (Pape Sarr). It’s not that Spurs didn’t have much of the upper hand in a first half that finished 1-1; it’s more the fact that they struggled to stop West Ham’s transitions. Pape Sarr addressed that, and in this context, it was OK to sacrifice Maddison’s quality because the likes of Heung Min Son and Dejan Kulusevski (again) were running rampant, as Spurs ran out 4-1 winners. It’s not renouncing “Ange-ball” — it’s making it more effective by responding to what is actually happening on the pitch.
8. Fonseca’s hard line pays dividends as 10-man Milan beat Udinese: Just about every coach talks the talk (“every member of the squad is equally important”), but not everyone walks the walk the way Fonseca does. He could have let the pre-break embarrassment of Milan’s silliness against Fiorentina slide. Instead, he acted by dropping Rafael Leão, and he probably would have dropped Theo Hernández too if he wasn’t suspended. Milan took the lead through Samuel Chukwueze, played more than an hour with 10 men after Tijani Reijnders’ red card, and still saw out a 1-0 win over Udinese. In so doing, they showed the kind of unity, professionalism and grit that their fans have been crying out for all season. Some coaches are indeed as good as their word.
7. Ten Hag finds motivation wherever he can as Man United snap their winless streak: Ten Hag & Co. went into the break a goal down and furious at the referee for twice making Matthijs De Ligt come off the pitch to get patched up after he injured himself in a wild challenge. De Ligt’s head and face were covered in blood, and the rules are pretty clear despite Ten Hag’s insistence that “it was dry blood.” The fact that he was off the pitch when Brentford went a goal up only infuriated him further, and he said the team “used it as fuel” for the second-half comeback that resulted in a 2-1 win. More than the “fuel” argument, I’d chalk it up to the fact that Marcus Rashford on the right can show off his perceptive passing, Alejandro Garnacho is a baller and Rasmus Hojlund is a cool finisher. That, and the fact that Brentford — when they’re missing this many players — aren’t good whereas United kept their belief until the end. Ten Hag can say his job isn’t on the line (“fairy tales and lies”), but his state of mind speaks volumes.
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Michallik calls Man United’s comeback win a ‘ray of hope’
Janusz Michallik looks back on an “excellent win” for Manchester United vs. Brentford to ease the pressure on Erik ten Hag.
6. Leverkusen’s big, late break infuriates Eintracht, and rightly so: Sometimes, more than one thing can be true. How the referee did not award Eintracht a penalty after Hugo Ekitike was unbalanced (at a minimum) by Jonathan Tah in injury time is hard to understand. If you were Eintracht you’d be angry, seeing a potential draw at the defending champions slip through your fingers. But hopefully you’d be realistic, too. Bayer Leverkusen had nine shots on target (27 overall) and an xG of 4.21, while missing a penalty to boot, en route to a 2-1 win. In terms of performance, this game should not have come down to injury time.
5. Lautaro Martínez enters the history books for Inter: The 1-0 win away to Roma was a “grown-up” (read: unspectacular and results-focused) performance and Lautaro Martinez was the difference-maker, scoring the only goal. I’m not sure I’d go as far as Simone Inzaghi, who says he’s a top five player in the world, but after a slow September, he’s hitting his stride nicely and his goal makes him Inter’s greatest-ever foreign goal scorer. Roma were poor and fearful, the rumblings among the fans don’t help, and Inter took advantage without risking too much.
4. Paris Saint-Germain’s youth project continues with Senny Mayulu: Maybe load management for veterans plus kids to eat minutes in Ligue 1 isn’t an official Luis Enrique policy. But it’s working, in no small part because PSG’s homegrown kids are just that good. Warren Zaïre-Emery, Yoram Zague, Ibrahim Mbaye and now Senny Mayulu have all started in Ligue 1 this year … and all are still teenagers. For that matter, so is Desiree Doue (who is not homegrown). PSG mixed it up against Strasbourg (with six plausible starters left out) and it was Mayulu who stole the show, opening the scoring en route to a 4-2 win.
3. Criticism of Juventus is wide of the mark at this stage in the season: No, Juventus did not exactly turn on the style in their 1-0 win over Lazio on Saturday. The build-up is too slow, and there’s a lack of directness. That’s not a reason to beat up Thiago Motta, though. Lazio going down to 10 men after 23 minutes didn’t help, as their opponents went into lockdown mode. And without Nico Gonzalez, Federico Conceicao and Teun Koopmeiners, they won’t have the same attacking oomph, which is understandable. Juve have yet to concede from open play, they’re third in Serie A, they’ve won both their Champions League games, the new boss just arrived … chill out.
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Nicol: VAR deserves praise after Man City’s late winner vs. Wolves
Steve Nicol reacts to the late VAR call that gave Man City a 2-1 win over Wolves in the Premier League.
2. Late Stones goal controversy overshadows other issues in Man City’s win: It hurts to concede in the 95th minute, but the reality is that John Stones‘ winner in the 2-1 Manchester City win away to Wolves should have stood: Bernardo Silva was not offside when he was interfering with goalkeeper José Sá (there is no offside on corner kicks) and by the time he could be offside (when Stones headed the ball) he wasn’t affecting play. That’s pretty obvious. The three points are big for Pep Guardiola, but the game showed there’s plenty to work on. For the fourth time in their last seven games, City went a goal down (and it could have been two down, if not for an Éderson miracle) and despite having over 75% possession, they looked sterile with the ball. Credit Wolves, who are much better than the table suggests, but there are things for Pep to work on.
1. Gilmour isn’t Lobotka (not yet, anyway) as soft penalty at Empoli keeps lackluster Napoli top of Serie A: Those who only look at results won’t care, but I assure you Antonio Conte does, which is why he said “anyone who has a headache can tell me and I’ll play someone else.” I’m not sure he was talking about anyone in particular (though Romelu Lukaku looked especially off the pace), but when Napoli play like this, he’s right to be concerned. A lot of the criticism is directed at Billy Gilmour, handed the playmaking role in Stanislav Lobotka’s absence. He wasn’t great, but this was his first league start. Let’s give him a bit of time, shall we?