Game to watch – RB Leipzig v Liverpool
“They [Liverpool] are not in a mega-crisis and will certainly be stable against us,” Julian Nagelsmann said, but surely doesn’t believe to be true.
“Stable” is not the word to describe Liverpool right now. Antonyms would come closer to the truth: mercurial; volatile; shaky; erratic. A team whose 17th centre-back partnership of the season crumbled in a third successive defeat on Saturday, to leave them 30 points adrift of where they were at the same stage last season, are definitely at some level of crisis.
Calls for Jurgen Klopp to leave or be sacked are premature in the extreme, irrational and insulting. And even if they were to be knocked out of the Champions League by Leipzig – leaving them with no hope of a trophy – any sane individual would simply write this season off and give the German the opportunity to start afresh with players back fit and (hopefully) supporters in the stadium. However, those same individuals would find it very difficult to discredit those claiming a crisis had indeed turned mega were their season hopes to boil down to a battle for fourth place by mid-March.
Since Leipzig knocked Manchester United out in their final group stage game, they’ve consolidated their position as Bayern Munich’s closest league rivals. But with any serious challenge over a 34-game season unlikely, particularly with Bayern four points clear with a game in hand, Nagelsmann may well see the Champions League as a more viable option for silverware.
And with fond memories of a last-16 triumph over an English opponent last season, led by manager who – by his own design or otherwise – seems to have to constantly prove a point in a Premier League audition every time he plays a Premier League opponent, this is not the sort of game where instability will go unpunished.
MAILBOX: Liverpool’s biggest strength is now their biggest weakness…
Team to watch – Borussia Dortmund
Erling Haaland? £90million. Giovani Reyna you say? £35million – you can’t say fairer than that. £104million? Au contraire, Mr Woodward. For you, just for you, Jadon Sancho for £88million.
Borussia Dortmund games have – for a while – been something of a shop window for European giants. With the German side currently sixth in the Bundesliga, facing losses from missing out on Champions League qualification along with those stemming from the pandemic, Dortmund players are even more up for grabs than usual. Haaland, Reyna and Sancho are three of the eight names on a sell list drawn up by the club.
A foray into the latter stages of this season’s competition will not only be financially fruitful in the short-term, but will also drive up the prices of their star assets. And, at the risk of romanticism piercing the cynical shell, it will also be nice because the Champions League is the Champions League.
They take on Sevilla on Wednesday.
Player to watch – David Silva
Real Sociedad have won eight of the ten La Liga games David Silva has started following his free transfer from Manchester City. After a 1-0 win over Cadiz on November 22, a Silva-inspired Sociedad sat proudly at the top of La Liga, causing manager Imanol Alguacil to temporarily lose his mind through excitement-driven delirium.
“Diego Maradona would find it hard to get into our team,” he said. “He could do it all on the ball — but not so much without it. We have David Silva who has almost the same talent — but also works hard.”
The word “almost” is doing an awful lot of work in that last sentence, but the Sociedad boss was right to laud the influence of the 35-year-old playmaker, without – at that time – the knowledge of how much they would struggle without him in the coming months.
Sociedad now sit fifth in La Liga, 16 points off league leaders Atletico Madrid, after winning just one of the nine games Silva has missed through injury. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for Manchester United, he returned to the starting lineup in the 1-0 victory over Getafe on Sunday, ready to face his familiar foe in the Europa League on Thursday, against whom he has some good memories…
David Silva:
“Maybe it’s one of the best [assists I’ve produced]. I’ve been lucky to produce many assists. In that case I have to thank @EdDzeko because he scored the goal, if he hadn’t scored nobody would remember that pass.”
[via @ManCity] pic.twitter.com/Nuh6vHXcdC
— Man City Report (@cityreport_) August 17, 2020
Manager to watch – Mauricio Pochettino
After an inauspicious start to life at PSG – a 1-1 draw against Claude Puel’s Saint-Etienne in his first game in charge – Pochettino won his first trophy seven days later [insert Spurs gag here] as they beat Marseille 2-1 in the Trophee des Champions.
The equivalent of the Community Shield, it’s a stretch to call it a proper trophy [insert second Spurs gag here], but then there is really only one trophy at this stage the Qatari owners care about winning. Despite being a point behind Lille in Ligue 1, PSG are hot favourites to surpass them and win the league, as they have done in seven of the last eight seasons.
Pochettino has been given the job to go one step futher than Thomas Tuchel and win the Champions League. He’ll have to get through Tuesday’s clash without Neymar and against Lionel Messi – who has eight goals in his last five – for a resurgent Barcelona, who have won their last seven on the bounce and haven’t lost in the league since the start of December. This is a proper Champions League game.
Football League game to watch – QPR v Brentford
Brentford have scored 12 more goals than any other team in the Championship on 55. Ivan Toney has contributed an incredible 23 of those of goals in his first season for the club: not a bad replacement for Ollie Watkins. Defeat to Barnsley on Sunday ended their 21-game unbeaten run in the league that stretched back to October 24 and meant Norwich went back above them at the top of the Championship.
Meanwhile, four wins in five for QPR has given them some breathing space at the other end of the division, but defeat to Brentford on Wednesday could see them dragged back into trouble as they still sit just five points above the drop zone.
Will Ford is on Twitter
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