Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
What the Champions League fanfare teaches us
IT’S been another thrilling week of action in the Champions League as the clubs completed their second match day in the group phase.
Highlights included Bayern Munich’s stunning 7-2 thrashing of Tottenham, a seven-goal thriller at Anfield and a superb game between Barcelona and Inter Milan.
We reflect on the midweek action with six things we learned.
1 IT’S THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR POCH
The brutal reality is that healthy clubs don’t lose 7-2 in their backyard, however ruthless the opposition may be. Bayern Munich are unquestionably a first class European force but Spurs, as Champions League finalists just four months ago, would rightly consider themselves as their peers.
The way Spurs collapsed to the heaviest home defeat ever suffered by an English team in European competition confirmed that the club are coming to the end of the Mauricio Pochettino era.
Once results and performances start moving in this direction, there is always only one outcome for the man in charge.
Pochettino hasn’t looked happy for quite some time now; he’s been irritable and it’s very sad to see.
There is also the very real sense that reaching the final in Madrid was the absolute limit of where Pochettino can take Spurs – at least without enormous investment in new players.
Spurs would have to pay Pochettino £32million if they dismiss him but the sense that he wants to leave after five years is very real and things could easily deteriorate further if he remains in place.
It will be easier for all concerned to make a clean break and as quickly as possible.
2 BAYERN HAVE DONE A WONDERFUL JOB WITH GNABRY
While delighting in his four-goal performance to humiliate their north London rivals, Arsenal fans will have been left questioning if this was the very same Serge Gnabry who left them in 2016.
This was the player who could never seem to get fit enough to win a place in Arsenal’s first team and who fell out with Tony Pulis when farmed out on loan to West Bromwich Albion.
But since Werder Bremen signed him for around £5m in the summer of 2016, his trajectory for both club and country Germany has been emphatically upwards.
His form in one season with Bremen was enough to earn a move to Bayern Munich but the best decision he made was to immediately join Hoffenheim on loan for greater game time.
Another impressive season followed and when he returned to the Allianz Arena, he was ready to perform for Germany’s best club and hasn’t looked back.
His performance on Tuesday night showed neatly how far he’s come from the kid languishing in Arsenal’s reserves.
3 FIKAYO’S ONE FOR THE FUTURE
Chelsea’s academy coaches must keep saying “we told you they were good” as their young charges keep impressing in Frank Lampard’s first team.
The club’s transfer embargo could prove to be the best thing that happened for the club now that the likes of Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori have formed a homegrown spine to the side. After excellence from Abraham and Mount in the early weeks of the season, 21-year-old defender Tomori was the latest to be singled out for praise by Lampard.
“Fikayo was outstanding again. He has to keep on with that,” the Chelsea boss said after their 2-1 win in Lille on Wednesday night.
Lampard rightly believes that the best way for these kids to learn their trade is to be thrown in at the deep end on the big occasions.
Tomori showed composure in what was a lively atmosphere and he looks increasingly likely to cement his place at the heart of Chelsea’s defence.
What’s more, he supplied the assist for Abraham to open the scoring and his form has won him an England call-up.
And another academy hopeful, 19-year-old full back Reece James, also caught the eye in northern France.
4 RONALDO’S RECORD WILL NEVER BE BEATEN
Cristiano Ronaldo scored in European competition for the 15th consecutive season as Juventus beat Bayer Leverkusen 3-0 on Tuesday night.
This is stating the obvious but his legacy in European competition will stand for the rest of time.
Ronaldo now has 127 goals in the Champions League, which is 15 more than Lionel Messi, and is a record that will take some beating.
In European competition, Ronaldo has an astonishing 128 goals in 170 matches for Sporting Lisbon, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juve.
Such quality over a sustained period of time is truly unique.
5 INTER ARE BACK ... AND IT’S GREAT TO SEE
People of a certain age will remember with great fondness the Inter Milan side featuring the likes of Ronaldo, Ivan Zamorano and Diego Simeone winning Uefa Cups in the 1990s.
Then there’s José Mourinho’s vintage of 2010 who beat Chelsea, Barcelona and Bayern Munich on their way to winning the Champions League.
The years since have been pretty barren for the Nerazzurri, who have become very much a Europa League outfit and not a very good one at that.
But, as their performance in defeat to Barcelona on Wednesday night proved, Antonio Conte is getting Inter slowly back to something like their old self.
Not only are they currently top of Serie A but the way they attacked Barca in the Nou Camp, taking an early lead through Lautaro Martinez, was good to see.
They repeatedly exposed Barca down the wings in the first-half and had chances to be out of sight by half-time before succumbing to two Luis Suarez goals.
And there was more evidence that Alexis Sanchez might even remain a half-decent player despite his Manchester United nightmare.
However, Inter must take at least four points from their upcoming double-header against Borussia Dortmund if they’re to get out of a tricky group.
6 SALZBURG SHOWED UP LIVERPOOL VULNERABILITIES
Jurgen Klopp rightly thought that Liverpool’s defensive woes had been cured by the arrival of Virgil van Dijk.
But although they have made a flawless start in the Premier League, just two clean sheets from their opening seven games has suggested a renewed vulnerability at the back.
And that was shown up by RB Salzburg on Wednesday night, who exposed defensive weaknesses to launch a comeback from three goals down.
The Austrians certainly have a prolific attack and once they started probing Liverpool the cracks started to show.
Joe Gomez was guilty of terrible positioning when Erling Braut Haaland tapped home Salzburg’s third goal and the night proved that Liverpool’s centre back pairing of Van Dijk and Joel Matip, who was missing through injury, is their strongest.