One more week of Champions League fixtures breezed past us, and like always it did not disappoint while throwing some surprise results our way. There were easy victories for the likes of Arsenal and Napoli whereas to everybody’s surprise, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City were held on to a 3-3 draw by Celtic at home.
Here we take a look at the five things that we learned from Champions League match day 2:
#1 Theo Walcott and Arsenal announce themselves
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After getting away with a lucky draw at Parc des Princes last time around, Arsenal did not waste much time against opponents FC Basel, as Theo Walcott headed an Alexis Sanchez cross emphatically to give the Gunners an early lead.
Not much time had passed before the duo combined again with a cheeky one-two, as the Chilean picked Walcott’s run in the box and the English winger made no mistake as he buried the ball past Tomas Vaclik to double their advantage.
Arsenal would easily have been ahead by a few more goals if not for Vaclik’s impressive performance in the Basel goal. The home team were also guilty of missing a horde of chances with Mesut Ozil particularly being wasteful in front of the goal. Alexis went very close to grabbing a well-deserved goal, but could not heap more misery on the Basel side.
With a line of key fixtures ahead, Arsenal have shown what they are capable of and they will be hoping that Theo Walcott continues his goal-scoring form.
#2 Real Madrid not the same without Casemiro
In his short career at Madrid, Casemiro has established himself as one of the key components of the Los Blancos midfield. Since the Brazilian midfielder has been sidelined due to an injury, Madrid haven’t won a single game, with all the three games against Villarreal, Las Palmas and Borussia Dortmund ending in draws.
Madrid were leading twice in the game, but without Casemiro they lacked a natural ball-winning midfielder in the team. And with Bale and Ronaldo starting the game in attack, there is hardly any tracking back leaving the soft core exposed. James Rodriguez, Luka Modric and Toni Kroos are immensely talented footballers, but none of them are capable of providing the defensive stability that is needed. As Zinedine Zidane himself admitted in the pre-match press conference, “Nobody plays quite like Casemiro”.
With three straight draws, Zidane and Madrid, must look to find a solution for this midfield conundrum and soon, if Madrid want to avoid dropping more points.
#3 Guardiola’s winning juggernaut brought to a halt
Manchester City struggled at the Celtic Park with their fixture ending in a 3-3 draw. With this they have lost their hundred percent win record under the Spaniard.
They played badly in phases, with Kolarov, starting at centre-back, looking shaky. Fernandinho, who scored the first goal for City, also failed to impress as he let the Celtic attackers run behind him easily time and again.
Even with many things going against them, the English outfit showed some impressive resilience as they came back from being down three times to earn a point. Raheem Sterling continued his resurrection under Guardiola against his former boss Brendan Rodgers’ side, as he went onto add another goal. After Spanish international Nolito brought City level at 3-3, they took control of the game towards the end of the match, but could not grab a winner.
Special mention is needed for an outstandingly brilliant teenager Moussa Dembele who scored a brace for the Scottish side.
As Guardiola has been saying in each of his press conferences, this City side isn’t the complete article yet. There will be sterner tests waiting in the future for them. But one thing is for certain, this team will not go down without a fight.
#4 Simeone gets one over Ancelotti in the Champions League
Bayern Munich and Carlo Ancelotti were handed their first defeat of the season as a Yannick Ferreira Carrasco goal helped Atletico Madrid to take a 1-0 win against the Bavarians.
Ancelotti and Simeone have gone head to head thirteen times in the Italian’s Real Madrid days, with Simeone winning five and losing four. But the Atletico manager had never beaten Ancelotti in the European competition as Atletico will bitterly remember the CL final defeat in 2013-14. Atletico also crashed out of the 2014-15 Champions League at the quarter-final stage against Los Blancos under Carlo.
But it turned out different this time around as the Los Rojiblancos put in a solid performance, drowning Bayern into further Champions League away form misery.
It may not have erased the unpleasant memories from that night in Lisbon, but it still will have been a sweet victory for Atletico and Simeone against an old foe as they went to the top in Group D.
#5 English teams continue to impress
Premier League teams have been criticised for not doing well in the Champions League in recent times. And the criticism has been accurate to an extent although City made it to the semi-finals last season.
This season though, the English teams have looked impressive in the premiere club competition. This week’s fixtures culminated in a resounding win for Arsenal against Basel, and a hard fought draw for Manchester City at Celtic Park.
Leicester City continued their dream run in the Champions League as new signing Islam Slimani scored in a 1-0 victory against FC Porto in their first-ever Champions League home game at the King Power Stadium.
Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspurs side beat CSKA Moscow 1-0 in Russia after losing their first CL game of the season against Monaco. Son Heung-min scored the only goal of the game as he continued his impressive goal-scoring form in the continued absence of Harry Kane.
Three victories and a high-scoring draw bode well for the English teams and they will be looking to keep the momentum going in the coming weeks.
