Champions League
BT Sport HD, kick-offs 7.45pm
The second round of group matches kicks off tonight with Apoel v Spurs, Man City v Shakhtar Donetsk and Spartak Moscow v Liverpool.
IT’S MATCHDAY TWO in the Champions League group stage this week with both Manchester United and Liverpool facing difficult ties in Russia against teams from Moscow.
After their comfortable 3-0 win against Basel two weeks ago, United meet CSKA Moscow on Wednesday at the VEB Arena. The Russian side also began Group A with three points, beating Benfica 2-1 in Lisbon with goals from Vitinho and Timur Zhamaletdinov.
United and CSKA were grouped together the last time United played in the Champions League, two years ago under Louis van Gaal. Back then, both sides failed to escape the group, though United did take four points from the Russian side.
CSKA, once managed briefly by Brazilian superstar Zico, now have 40year-old Viktor
Goncharenko in charge, and he guided them to second place in last season’s Russian Premier League behind Spartak Moscow.
Spartak are in action on Tuesday, hosting Liverpool in Group E. The clubs previously met in the group stage back in 2002, with the Merseysiders easing to victory in both ties. It’s been some 12 months for Spartak: a year ago they were humiliated by AEK Larnaca in a Europa League qualifier, but after Massimo Carrera (formerly Antonio Conte’s assistant at Juventus) took over, their fortunes changed and they
MANCHESTER UNITED AND LIVERPOOL face tough Champions League games in Russia
won the Russian Premier League for the first time in 16 years.
Spartak opened their Group E campaign with a 1-1 draw against NK Maribor, while Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah were on target as the Reds shared the spoils with Sevilla.