Champions League gameweek 3

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Alli with the Berbaspin:drool:
 
Lol what a dumb penalty for Porto. Let's see if they score. And they did! Good win for them.
 
FT at Bay Arena. 0-0. It was a game of 2 halves. First half belonged to Spurs but Bayer totally overwhelmed them in the 2nd half. Unfortunately no goal. Too many poor decisions in the final 3rd by the Germans
 
Sevilla are in danger of not finishing third in their group.
 
What a scrappy, scrappy win this was. Let´s hope our hospital has not grown further because of this game.
 
Scorpy said:
Still expect Leverkusen to qualify despite the three draws in a row.
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Crazily enough they should've won all their games so far the way they played. Better side against CSKA, better side in Monaco, better side against Tottenham.

I cannot believe how Monaco ALWAYS seems to get a result no matter how they play. Late equalizer again, just like against Leverkusen.
 
redNATION said:
We had a piss easy group last year, but somehow managed to mess it up. Still makes me angry just thinking about it:mad:
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Not too hard but I'd still call it far harder than what Leicester currently have. Wolfsburg got 2nd in the Bundesliga the season before, won the cup, and almost went on to the CL semis. Porto isn't as strong as they used to be, or at least they weren't last year. They got 3rd in Portugal last season, 13 points off 2nd place.
  1. CSKA and PSV are also far flashier opponents than FC Kobenhavn and Club Brugge (no offense).
 
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Leicester will never win the Europa League if they carry on like this
 
Really enjoyed watching Sporting vs. Dortmund, a few thoughts:

- Gelson Martins is an impressive dribbler and crosser but incredibly weak on the ball. First time I've used the phrase "needs to bulk up" seriously, regardless of his age it affects his play a lot.
- Felix Passlack is simply brilliant. Even at left-back today (instead of RB) he was honestly monstrous. Just another player to keep an eye on at BVB.
- It was interesting watching the holding midfield performances from both Weigl and Carvalho. Both showed decent ability at doing the things the other is usually known for - Carvalho with his long passing and Weigl with his tackling tonight. Was impressed with both.
- Ruben Semedo has potential but unfortunately currently plays like Marcos Rojo. Hope he improves.
- Bartra is just so average.

On another note, Mikael Silvestre is a pundit on BeIN Sports at the moment and just said that he doesn't see anyone coming through in Italy that can replace Buffon :lol: Does he not know that Donnarumma exists? If literally anyone in the world can replace Buffon it's him. What a bizarre comment, and as a member of the current set-up at Rennes it shows a worrying lack of knowledge. It's enough that he couldn't convince Dembele to come to us instead of Dortmund in the summer without making silly comments like that. :mad:
 
prarek said:
Away from home Spurs should be happy with a point.
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Yes, happy enough. A draw was a fair result: Spurs had the better of the first half, but B. Leverkusen the 2nd, and both came close to scoring.

I still expect us to make it out of the group stages, and with any luck Kane will be back in the fray for our next CL game.
 
Poor Akinfeev. It's his 40th consecutive CL game when he concedes a goal :lol:
 
Dortmund started with Dembele (19), Passlack (18) and Pulisic (18) today...away to Sporting. Didn't even use Mor (19).
Dembele already at 827 minutes this season, Passlack at 527, and Pulisic at 493.
 
So the last time Igor Akinfeev has not conceded a goal in the CL was in 2006!!!
It's not even cause he never qualified since.
He's on a 40 game run of conceding at least 1 goal per game in the CL. Crazy really. :lol:


(He was so close too...87th minute equalizer)
 
NYAS said:
Really enjoyed watching Sporting vs. Dortmund, a few thoughts:

- Gelson Martins is an impressive dribbler and crosser but incredibly weak on the ball. First time I've used the phrase "needs to bulk up" seriously, regardless of his age it affects his play a lot.
- Felix Passlack is simply brilliant. Even at left-back today (instead of RB) he was honestly monstrous. Just another player to keep an eye on at BVB.
- It was interesting watching the holding midfield performances from both Weigl and Carvalho. Both showed decent ability at doing the things the other is usually known for - Carvalho with his long passing and Weigl with his tackling tonight. Was impressed with both.
- Ruben Semedo has potential but unfortunately currently plays like Marcos Rojo. Hope he improves.
- Bartra is just so average.

On another note, Mikael Silvestre is a pundit on BeIN Sports at the moment and just said that he doesn't see anyone coming through in Italy that can replace Buffon :lol: Does he not know that Donnarumma exists? If literally anyone in the world can replace Buffon it's him. What a bizarre comment, and as a member of the current set-up at Rennes it shows a worrying lack of knowledge. It's enough that he couldn't convince Dembele to come to us instead of Dortmund in the summer without making silly comments like that. :mad:
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If Passlack´s performance today was monstrous then I could not come up with a hyperbole big enough to describe most of his previous performances for us. Don´t get me wrong, I rate his talent very highly and in general adore the little guy for his right amount of aggressiveness and really good attitude (it is certainly no surprise that he captained nearly all youth teams he played in and is next to Weigl the most promising lead player amongst the youngsters), but this game first and foremost showed that he is far more comfortable and suited as RB. He was very clearly the weak link of the starting defense and Sporting also identified it as such. Now, this can´t and shouldn´t be held against him given his age and the position, but it does not change the facts that Passlack allowed too many crosses by positioning himself wrong and left his flank vacant at times.

Concerning Bartra, I´m sure most will use the one misunderstanding with Bürki which led to the indirect freekick and attest him a poor game, but I´m in general against judging a overall performance on a single scene and outside of it he was quite frankly our best defender in the game. He had the highest duel percentage amongst the starting backline, which is pretty suprising as he had the harder task (partnering with the beforementioned Pacclack compared to the far more solid and experienced Ginter) and way less aerial duels (which normally boost the overall percentage) than Sokratis. He made four extremely important clearances inside or at the edge of the box and in the first half alone he negated three very promising counter opportunities by winning two crucial duels higher up the pitch and intercepting one of Carvalhos passes, which would have cut open the whole defensive unit.
 
Sphaero said:
If Passlack´s performance today was monstrous then I could not come up with a hyperbole big enough to describe most of his previous performances for us. Don´t get me wrong, I rate his talent very highly and in general adore the little guy for his right amount of aggressiveness and really good attitude (it is certainly no surprise that he captained nearly all youth teams he played in and is next to Weigl the most promising lead player amongst the youngsters), but this game first and foremost showed that he is far more comfortable and suited as RB. He was very clearly the weak link of the starting defense and Sporting also identified it as such. Now, this can´t and shouldn´t be held against him given his age and the position, but it does not change the facts that Passlack allowed too many crosses by positioning himself wrong and left his flank vacant at times.

Concerning Bartra, I´m sure most will use the one misunderstanding with Bürki which led to the indirect freekick and attest him a poor game, but I´m in general against judging a overall performance on a single scene and outside of it he was quite frankly our best defender in the game. He had the highest duel percentage amongst the starting backline, which is pretty suprising as he had the harder task (partnering with the beforementioned Pacclack compared to the far more solid and experienced Ginter) and way less aerial duels (which normally boost the overall percentage) than Sokratis. He made four extremely important clearances inside or at the edge of the box and in the first half alone he negated three very promising counter opportunities by winning two crucial duels higher up the pitch and intercepting one of Carvalhos passes, which would have cut open the whole defensive unit.
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I was very impressed with how he handled Gelson Martins. The latter was in hot form coming into the game and sure, Passlack had some help from Pulisic at times however he did most of the work himself and in my view completely shut Gelson down.

To be honest with regards to Bartra, I thought he had an average game, not a bad game however even apart from the Burki incident he seemed lax on the ball at times and on a couple of occasions I noticed that he probably didn't aid Sokratis against Dost as much as he needed to, there were a couple of free headers Dost had that he should have buried. To be fair I must admit that I'm probably slightly biased against him since I never thought he was that good even at Barca and when I inevitably compare him to the other young talents at BVB (Passlack, Guerreiro, Pulisic, Weigl, Mor, Dembele, even Merino) I don't see him having the same kind of potential in his respective position. It's not his fault and I'm not saying he can't improve, but most times I've watched him I can't say that he particularly showed a consistent ability to perform on an above average level on the big stage.

That's the beauty of opinions though! That was a great win for Dortmund, they already have 2 out of 3 away games out of the way and won both.
 
It'll be interesting to see what kind of way Pep sets up tactically. He must know his side's limitations against a team like Barca at the Nou Camp, but I'm put in mind of the first half against Barca when Pep managed Bayern and he tried to match them. It was suicidal. I wonder if he's learned from it. These are the games where I really rate Mourinho's adaptability -- it can be a hindrance sometimes, always adapting instead of imposing, but a massive strength in big games.
 
City playing defensively despite spending more than any side in world football last year?
Am I doing this right?
 
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