EPL Teams in Europe
Normally I always expect English Premier League teams to do better than most in European competitions, but this week my expectations have been brought down by a few failures. Yes, Manchester City was a machine against Sevilla, and frankly I even think they had a lot of referee calls go against them.But the other English teams had far from good starts.
Let's look at the scores:
| Home | Visitor | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamo Zagreb | Chelsea | 1-0 |
| Sevilla | Manchester City | 0-4 |
| Napoli | Liverpool | 4-1 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | Marseille | 2-0 |
| FC Zurich | Arsenal | 1-2 |
| Manchester United | Real Sociedad | 0-1 |
| West Ham | FCSB Steaua | 3-1 |
The first four are Europa Champions League, the next two are Europa League and the last one is Europa Conference League. So we have a 50/50 performance in ECL and EL and 100% in Conference League. But the losses are very worrying, Chelsea losing against Dynamo Zagreb was not in the pre game forecasts, especially since Chelsea could have lost by more. Liverpool losing at Napoli is not that hard to happen, they always have a rough time in Italy, but not by that score and that performance, Napoli even missed a penalty, it could have been a historic loss. Manchester United losing at Old Trafford against a rival who had never beaten them is also very bad.
Now let's go to Liverpool which is my team. A very bad performance, two early penalties, the second one missed and I thought that would be Liverpool's comeback, but Joe Gomez had different ideas, boy did he ever have a bad game. He was taken out for Matic for the second half but a very early Napoli fourth goal just killed any hopes. Yes, Diaz scored a nice goal and the Napoli goalkeeper made a couple of saves, but Liverpool are in bad shape. The one thing I did not understand is using Jota and Thiago as substitutes, if they are injured don't use them, if they aren't and your midfield is shaky use them from the start. I think Klopp made a mistake there. The one good thing is we now know where we stand, which is in the don't expect much corner.
Chelsea's loss even cost Tuchel the job, I don't think this was a smart move. As for Manchester United, that is one team I don't particularly like, plus I have been a Real Sociedad fan since 1979 so all is good there. As for the teams that did win, apart from City they all had mediocre performances but got the points. I expect big improvements in the following games, if not I only see City having any chances.