Champions League winners and losers

Daniel Storey

Winners

Alexis Sanchez
We spent all that time believing that Arsenal desperately needed two centre-forward options, and now it turns out they didn’t need any at all. Arsenal’s form since the 0-0 draw at Leicester has been supreme, but it is Sanchez who deserves the most credit. In his new role, the Chilean has flourished. Who is Olivier Giroud anyway?

When on form, there are few Premier League players more alluring in style than Sanchez. He has the skill to entertain but the drive to truly impress, hungry not just to receive the ball but then drive towards goal. We have called him a streetfighter in the past, but add a touch of ninja and you have Sanchez down to a T. He is impossible not to enjoy as a neutral, and impossible not to love if he’s yours.

It is Sanchez’s directness that most helps Arsenal, a club that had gained a reputation for ‘all fart, no sh*t’, as my grandfather might have said. While Mesut Ozil’s brand of brilliance is more insouciant, with Sanchez you can see the cogs turning. Having that Duracell bunny quality as close to the penalty area as possible is working wonders.

And then, just as you think Sanchez’s brilliance is founded on effort, he produces a finish so delicate that it provokes the sort of noise that makes your partner check where your hands are. The difference between Sanchez the worker and Sanchez the artist, and his ability to flick the switch between the two, makes him impossible to defend.

Sanchez’s propensity to run ad infinitum is the only remaining doubt. I wondered in last week’s Big Weekend when he would be afforded a break, and the answer came after 73 minutes of a game that was effectively won as soon as the first goal was scored. It was surprising to see Sanchez start such a gentle fixture, and Arsene Wenger must beware of running his player into the ground.

For now however, only optimism reigns. Matt Stead wrote on Wednesday that Arsenal might now have their best squad for 12 years, and he presence of players comfortable in multiple positions only adds to that argument. Walcott is now impressing on the right after being a striker, Aaron Ramsey (when he returns) has played centrally or on the right, Mesut Ozil can play anywhere behind the striker and Sanchez has played as a wide forward and now false nine. It hardly needs saying, but those last two really can raise the ceiling of Arsenal’s ambitions.

 

Lionel Messi
A difficult start to the season for Messi, injury problems restricting his appearances in Barcelona’s side. So it’s only 12 goals by October.

This season in Europe, Messi is averaging a goal or assist for every 22.5 minutes played. On Wednesday he scored the 37th hat-trick of his career, and has now scored 16 goals in 15 games against England’s best clubs. The statistics just make you laugh now.

After Messi’s latest hat-trick, Luis Enrique praised his forward for being “decisive”. That’s like praising Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night for being colourful or Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss for being hard. Enjoy him while you can.

 

Mesut Ozil

Predictable, but also excellent. As the tweet hints with tongue in cheek, there is room for more than one magician without the interminable ranking of players against one another. Ozil certainly has magic in those boots and brain.

 

Hugo Lloris
Our early winner, likeable because his excellence comes with no affectation.

 

Tottenham
Hanging on at times during the second half, but Tottenham did have the best chances before the break. More important than the method was the result, a 0-0 draw in Germany and only the fifth team in 40 to stop Leverkusen scoring at home in the Champions League. They had scored 14 in their previous five games.

Couple that with Monaco’s draw in CSKA Moscow and you have a very pleasing night for those in white. Beat Leverkusen at home in a fortnight’s time and Tottenham will have one foot in the last 16.

 

Claudio Ranieri
There is no doubt that Ranieri took a risk in so obviously prioritising the Champions League over the Premier League. A report from Mark Ogden in the Independent on Monday claimed that Ranieri might be in danger of being sacked due to the club’s league form, but that was hopefully a slightly hyperbolic hunch. Leicester have been faultless during the early weeks of their maiden European Cup campaign.

Ranieri spoke on BBC 5Live after Tuesday’s victory, and expressed his surprise at how well his Leicester team had coped with European football. While the victory over Club Brugge was relatively straightforward, wins against Copenhagen and Porto have demanded the resolve that Leicester showed in spades last season, but not this.

With one foot and three toes already in the knock-out stages, and first place in the group also within reach, Ranieri’s task is now to address a domestic slump that sees Leicester with more points in the Champions League than the Premier League. There’s no point having shiny trinkets on the mantelpiece if the rest of the room is gathering dust.

That fight starts at Crystal Palace, but Ranieri will be confident of addressing any murmurs of domestic discontent. The rewards from their European adventure should give plenty enough reason to believe that they can be operating back in the top half within a month.

 

Leicester’s defence
All change please. Leicester’s defence is among the most porous in the Premier League, but they are one of only four teams to have not conceded a goal in the Champions League. The others (Atletico Madrid, Juventus and Sevilla) are all regulars at European football’s top table.

The difference is bizarre. The standard of opposition attackers has been of a lesser quality than those in the Premier League, but even that does not account for the composure of Leicester’s defending in Europe in comparison with their domestic panic.

Leicester are allowing shots on target at a rate of 5.4 per game in the Premier League but only 3.0 in Europe. They’ve made one individual error leading to a goal in the Premier League and three leading to shots; they’ve made none of either in Europe. Can a defence get complacent after success in one competition but then still raise their games in another?

 

Riyad Mahrez
The best player in both of Leicester’s last two Champions League games, putting sluggish domestic form to the back of his mind. No pass to Jamie Vardy in the last month in the Premier League, but at least three in every Champions League match so far.

 

Atletico Madrid’s defence
Included for the second time in succession in this column, but it’s really worth pouring on gallons of praise. Atletico have conceded two goals in their last ten matches, one in a 7-1 win and one against Barcelona in the Nou Camp. Ridiculous.

 

Borussia Dortmund
A lean run comes to an end in perfect style. Dortmund’s 6-0 win over a woeful Legia Warsaw team was their only Champions League win in six Champions League matches, but a difficult test in Lisbon was passed consummately. It’s now a straight shoot-out with Real Madrid for top spot.

 

That Dortmund front six
If Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Mario Götze, Shinji Kagawa, Julian Weigl, Christian Pulisic and Ousmane Dembele wasn’t sexy enough, check out the list of midfielders not in that team: Nuri Sahin, Emre Mor, André Schürrle, Marco Reus, Sven Bender, Gonzalo Castro, Adrián Ramos and Sebastian Rode.

Swoon. There’s a reason why no team have had more shots on target than Dortmund this season.

 

Besiktas
A first win in the Champions League proper since the 1-0 win at Old Trafford in November 2009, and a quite stunning result in Naples. Besiktas’ record in this competition is dire; could they finally get beyond the group stage for the first time?

 

Borussia Monchengladbach
The first away Champions League win in the club’s history. The Foals haven’t just got their hands around third place in this group, they also have a chance to push Manchester City for second. A first away clean sheet since May could not have been timed better.

 

Samir Nasri
“The team breathes when he has the ball. He has so much quality that he is able to relieve us when we’re being pressured by our opponent” – Jorge Sampaoli.

It’s not a description that immediately calls to mind the Samir Nasri portrayed in the British media – a petulant, sulky personality and a career stagnated. Nasri started four Premier League games last season, injury and form pushing him to the edge of Manuel Pellegrini’s plans. Pep Guardiola didn’t even want to know.

Having joined Sevilla on a loan deal for which Manchester City are still contributing half of Nasri’s wages, the Frenchman has gone about rebuilding his reputation and enjoying his football. In his last six matches he has three goals, an assist and two Man of the Match awards. On Tuesday he scored Sevilla’s winner in Zagreb.

It’s easy to forget that Nasri has not yet turned 30, the jumper put in the charity shop bag not through age but because it no longer fitted. A new owner of a slightly different size, and that jumper can quickly look trendy again.

While Manchester City and Nasri may have grown apart, the midfielder has found a new lease of life in Spain. His performances have helped Sevilla to sit above Barcelona in the table; that’s a scenario of which his parent club can only dream.

 

Bayern Munich
Had previously gone four games without scoring three or more goals and six without scoring four. The crisis is over.

 

Losers

Claudio Bravo
“I’m sorry but until the last day of my career as a coach I will try to play from our goalkeeper,” Guardiola said after defeat at Barcelona. “There are moments you have to kick the ball out and against Everton on Saturday we played four or five times the long ball. But he tried to play it and sometimes this happens.

“There will be no change [of goalkeeper]. It stays the same. Football is a game of mistakes. He knows what he did. He has a lot of experience and he’s one of the best goalkeepers in the last 10 years. I don’t have doubts about him. He’s disappointed but he will learn from that.”

It is the most categorical defence Bravo could wish to receive. With Joe Hart out on loan and therefore the decision already made, Guardiola is hardly likely to change his mind.

Yet Manchester City’s manager must be privately disappointed by his goalkeeper’s start to life at the club. A difficult debut at Old Trafford was followed by jitters against Bournemouth and Tottenham. Against Barcelona, Bravo produced a moment of such ineptitude that it changed the entire course of the match.

Guardiola has repeatedly made the point about wanting his goalkeeper to play out from the back, but there is a line between expansiveness and naivety. Bravo’s decision to tear out of his goal was the correct one, but trying to casually play the ball to a teammate with Luis Suarez lurking was an error ‘bettered’ only by the woeful execution of his pass. The choice to deliberately handle the ball was an instinctive one, but equally misjudged.

The intention of a sweeper-keeper is to breathe confidence into a central defensive pairing, provide an outlet when your team has the ball and an extra defender without it. At the moment, Bravo is sucking the belief out of City’s defenders. Those of us watching are waiting for the next mistake.

Guardiola is right that Bravo’s record earns him our (and his manager’s) patience, but the Chilean must soon stop taking large jumps backward to match the steps in the right direction. Right now Manchester City’s goalkeeper is only going one way, and it’s Bravo to zero.

 

Nicolas Otamendi
That most frustrating of central defenders, for whom 90% excellence is completely undermined by the stupidity of the 10%. Those are not the kind of percentages that will keep Pep Guardiola happy for long.

 

Pep Guardiola
He’s the early loser, because Matt Stead said so (and his new team lost 4-0 to his old team).

 

Vincent Janssen
Played well and was still taken off after 65 minutes. It’s impossible to look at Janssen’s 11 Premier League and Champions League games without a goal for his new club and not grow a little concerned, however good his link-up play has been.

 

Three-team groups
One of the arguments against the expansion of the European Championship was that three rounds of matches would be played to whittle 24 teams down to 16, an awful lot of effort to lose only a third of the teams in the tournament; it doesn’t feel like it is getting going until the last 20% of the matches.

The Champions League has its own variation on that problem. The increasing gap between the financial haves and have-nots is causing a farcical divide between the worst and best teams in the group stage. Only two of the groups (B – Napoli, Besiktas, Benfica and Dynamo Kiev and E with Monaco, Tottenham, CSKA Moscow and Bayer Leverkusen) are wholly competitive, and these are two of the three without an elite team (Benfica and CSKA were both top seeds).

The fourth-placed teams in the other six groups have conceded a total of 60 goals in 18 combined matches. Their record reads: P 18, W 0, D 3, L 15, For 9, Against 60.

While those clubs may embrace the financial benefits of Champions League football, by competitive standards they are a class apart. Of those three points gained, FC Rostov’s and Ludogorets’ came against teams that have also only collected one point and been soundly beaten in other matches (FC Basel and PSV Eindhoven). Only Celtic’s draw with Manchester City is the exception, and they conceded seven to the top seeds.

The sad reality is that after only half of the group stage has been completed, ten of the 16 qualifiers have already virtually been decided. For the likes Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Paris St Germain, Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Juventus, the group stage is increasingly becoming an exercise in shelling peas. When the tournament doesn’t feel like it really gets going until February, don’t be surprised when interest wanes August-December.

 

Napoli
It was all going so well. On September 28, Napoli beat Benfica 4-2 at home to take control of their Champions League group. Maurizio Sarri’s team had won both of their European games but were also unbeaten in Serie A, a point behind Juventus after winning four and drawing two of their six matches. No team had scored more times, with Arkadiusz Milik and Jose Callejon immediately clicking as a strike partnership.

Three weeks later, and Napoli’s season is quickly caving in. Surprise defeat at Atalanta was followed by wretched home defeat to Roma, and on Wednesday Besiktas came to the Stadio San Paolo and won. Napoli have lost as many home games in the last five days as they had in the previous 18 months, and Milik is out for five months with a cruciate ligament injury.

 

Kolo Toure
We love him, but Celtic supporters might have some harsher words for a defender who effectively cost his side their European dream.

Celtic’s realistic ambition would always have been to finish above Monchengladbach and qualify for the Europa League last 32, but that looks unlikely after Toure twice gifted away possession. Celtic must either win in Germany, at Manchester City or against Barcelona. Good luck.

“In that kind of competition you can’t afford that kind of mistake. I have to blame myself,” Toure said after the game. “I have to blame myself because it was a simple action to put the ball to the side. I like to play and give my team the ball but maybe not there. It was the same with the second goal. I’m 35-years-old and still making 16-year-old’s mistakes.”

Bloody hell Kolo, you’re going to make me cry.

 

Brendan Rodgers
“He’s a top professional, Kolo. When you’re asking players to play at times that happens. There’s no blame attached to him there.”

You can attach blame somewhere, Brendan. Because asking 22-year-old central midfielders to pass the ball in tight spaces is one thing, but asking a 35-year-old creaking defender to do it is another entirely. And asking that same defender to keep doing it after the opposition have identified and exploited that weakness for the first goal is yet another.

Rodgers will have enjoyed (and was rightly praised for) the draw against Manchester City, but this was a devastating blow to his first season in charge. It now looks likely that the only post-Christmas competition will be for the domestic trophies that Celtic should win every season. It’s hard for a manager to rebuild his reputation in such circumstances.

 

Alexandre Lacazette
Six goals in 341 league minutes since returning from injury, but a missed penalty when Lyon really needed him. Potential 1-0 lead became eventual 1-0 defeat, and with it surely went Lyon’s chances of progress. Four points behind the top two with only three games left is a mammoth task.

 

Sporting CP
Sporting’s last nine home games before Tuesday read as follows: W9, D0, L0, For 28, Against 5.

All they needed was a point, and Dortmund could have been kept within reach in the unlikely hunt for knock-out stage qualification for only the second time since 1984. They didn’t get it, and third place now looks confirmed.

Somehow, Sporting have managed to lose two of their three matches despite only allowing the opposition to have six shots on target. It’s almost as bad as being incorrectly called Sporting Lisbon.

 

Legia Warsaw
They have allowed 79 shots in their three matches. That’s 26 more than any other team, an astonishing lead over three games.

 

FC Basel
Paying the price for a lack of domestic competition? Basel have a ludicrous 14-point lead in the Swiss Super League after just 11 matches, but sit level on points with Ludogorets after a dire Champions League run.

 

Ludogorets
Losers for shipping in six goals, but mainly for getting Robbie Williams’ No Regrets in my head every p*ssing time the Champions League comes around again.

 

Daniel Storey