On a night where the footballing word paid tribute to the great Diego Maradona, here are five things we learned from Wednesday’s action as Manchester City won in Greece and Liverpool lost at home.
Foden is making himself a key player
A couple of years ago, Phil Foden was making small cameo appearances from the bench. It was obvious the 20 year old had a huge amount of potential, but due to City’s huge amount of midfield talent, it seemed like chances for Foden may be limited. Fast forward to this year and Foden is becoming one of City’s key players. The Englishman put in a dazzling display for City against Olympiacos, just a week after he put in a similar performance for England against Iceland.
Against an Olympiacos side that set up to defend, it was Foden that was constantly driving forward, breaking the defensive line. It was no surprise that he opened the scoring, combining well with Sterling before slotting it into the bottom right-hand corner.
Atalanta can compete with the best
While Liverpool played unusually poorly at Anfield on Wednesday, it is important to take nothing away from Atalanta who completely deserved to win. The Italian side are still relatively new to European football, but do not look out of place. While Italian football is normally associated with a slower, tactical style, Atalanta definitely go against this norm, with a brilliant attack, right up there with the best in Europe.
City lack clinical finish without Aguero
Despite it being a good night for City, it could’ve been far more comfortable. They created chance after chance and forced the Olympiacos goalkeeper into a number of good saves. If City want to truly compete with Europe’s best, they have to be more clinical in the knockout stages. Gabriel Jesus is a good player no doubt, but he is not at the class of Sergio Aguero and you feel that for City to get to the latter stages of the Champions League, they will need the Argentinian at full fitness.
Qualification not guaranteed for Reds
While City’s group is simple in terms of qualification, Atalanta’s win at Anfield has thrown Group D wide open. Liverpool still sit top with nine points still with Ajax and FC Midtjylland to play. Jurgen Klopp’s side will still be confident they will qualify through to the knockout stages but their task has gotten harder. Atalanta will play Ajax in the last group stage game and that may well decide who goes through to the knockout stages.
English Teams on top
It was very disappointing last year that no English team reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea all lost in the Round Of 16 last year, while Manchester City suffered a disappointing loss against Lyon. This year, all four English teams are top of their groups and all of them will believe they can go far into the knockout stages.
The next round of fixtures will be next week with Liverpool and City in action Tuesday against Ajax and Porto, with Manchester United and Chelsea playing on Wednesday against PSG and Sevilla.
