Champions League 25/26

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Tuesday, 15th September 2025
Athletic Club v Arsenal, 17:45 TNT Sports 1
PSV v Union Saint-Gilloise, 17:45 TNT Sports 2
Benfica v Qarabag, 20:00 TNT Sports 3
Juventus v Borussia Dortmund, 20:00 TNT Sports 2
Real Madrid v Olympique Marseille, 20:00 TNT Sports 1
Tottenham Hotspur v Villarreal, 20:00 Amazon Prime Video

[Mac76]

Carrier Bag in the CL :lol:

That's almost as bad as Spuds being there (well actually it's nowhere near as bad but still...)

[McNamara That Ghost...]

PSV 0-3 Union Saint-Gilloise

Kevin Mac Allister scoring. :lol:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

1-3 now.

[HCZ_Reborn]

PSV 0-3 Union Saint-Gilloise

Kevin Mac Allister scoring. :lol:

That filthy animal

[McNamara That Ghost...]

:haha:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Spuds: Vicario; Porro, Romero, Van de Ven, Spence; Bentancur, Sarr, Bergvall; Kudus, Richarlison, Simons.
Subs: Kinsky, Austin, Danso, Joao Palhinha, Udogie, Gray, Johnson, Odobert, Davies, Kolo Muani, Scarlett, Byfield.

Villarreal: Luiz Junior, Mourino, Foyth, Renato Veiga, Cardona, Buchanan, Comesana, Gueye, Pepe, Perez, Mikautadze
Subs: Conde, Tenas, Altimira, Rafa Marín, Solomon, Parejo, Akhomach, Partey, Moleiro, Oluwaseyi, Pedraza, Navarro

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Junior throws it in for Tottenham.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Benfica 1-0 Qarabag.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Junior throws it in for Tottenham.

https://media1.tenor.com/m/152PgBPeUgoAAAAC/sopranos-what-a-blow-sopranos-a-blow.gif

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Benfica 2-0 Qarabag

[McNamara That Ghost...]

2-1 now.

Real Madrid 1-1 Marseille

[HCZ_Reborn]

Carrier bag get a goal back

It’s 1-1 between Real Madrid and Marseille. Weah for Marseille and Mbappe pel for Los meringues

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Benfica 2-2 Qarabag!

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Juventus 0-1 Dortmund, Adeyemi!

[McNamara That Ghost...]

1-1 now, Yildiz.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Juventus 2-2 Dortmund, Nmecha and then Vlahovic. :wacko:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Juventus 2-3 Dortmund, Cauto.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Partey coming on.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Carvajal sent off for Marketing.

[Marc Overmars]

Partey coming on.

A warm welcome back to North London I presume.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Quite loud roaring return.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

2-1 Marketing, another Mbappe pelanty.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Juventus 2-4 Dortmund, Bensebaini pelanty.

Benfica 2-3 Qarabg, Kaschuk!

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Spuds 1-0 Villarreal, FT.

A bit shit.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Juventus 4-4 Dortmund, Kelly and Vlahovic!

WTF.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Watched some of the highlights of the matches

In the Juventus-Dortmund game, I’d say there were three absolute top draw goals (two for Dortmund, one for Juve) the rest were just shambolic defending

And on the subject of shambolic defending, move on to PSV-USG

Though I can’t call the defending shambolic because there wasn’t any, defenders seemed to be there for decorative purposes for the Dutch side

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Wednesday, 17th September 2025
Olympiakos v Pafos, 17:45 TNT Sports 3
Slavia Prague v Bodo/Glimt 17:45 TNT Sports 9
Ajax v Inter Milan, 20:00 TNT Sports 5
Bayern Munich v Chelsea, 20:00 TNT Sports 2
Liverpool v Atletico Madrid, 20:00, TNT Sports 1
PSG V Atalanta, 20:00 TNT Sports 3

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Olympikos 0-0 Pafos and Slavia Prague 2-1 Bodo/Glimt

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Bayern Munich: Neuer, Laimer, Upamecano, Tah, Stanisic, Kimmich, Pavlovic, Olise, Gnabry, Luis Diaz, Kane
Subs: Ulreich, Urbig, Boey, Kim, Kiala, Goretzka, Karl, David Daiber, Bichof, Jackson

Chelsea: Sanchez, Gusto, Tosin, Chalobah, Cucurella, Caciedo, James, Pedro Neto, Fernandez, Palmer, Joao Pedro
Subs: Jorgensen, Curd, Acheampong, Hato, Fofana, Andrey Santos, Buonanotte, Estevao, Gittens, Garnacho, Guiu, George

Curd. :lol:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Liverpool: Alisson, Robertson, Van Dijk, Konate, Frimpong, Gravenberch, Szoboszlai, Wirtz, Gakpo, Isak, Salah.
Subs: Mamardashvili, Woodman, Gomez, Endo, Kerkez, Bradley, Mac Allister, Leoni, Ekitike, Ngumoha, Danns.

Atletico Madrid: Oblak, Galán, Lenglet, Le Normand, Llorente, González, Gallagher, Barrios, Simeone, Griezmann, Raspadori.
Subs: Musso, Esquivel, Ruggeri, Koke, Martín, Molina, Hancko, Pubill, Zanzi, Belid, Sørloth.

Ekitke. :rose:

Kerkez. :lol:

[HCZ_Reborn]

Bayern Munich: Neuer, Laimer, Upamecano, Tah, Stanisic, Kimmich, Pavlovic, Olise, Gnabry, Luis Diaz, Kane
Subs: Ulreich, Urbig, Boey, Kim, Kiala, Goretzka, Karl, David Daiber, Bichof, Jackson

Chelsea: Sanchez, Gusto, Tosin, Chalobah, Cucurella, Caciedo, James, Pedro Neto, Fernandez, Palmer, Joao Pedro
Subs: Jorgensen, Curd, Acheampong, Hato, Fofana, Andrey Santos, Buonanotte, Estevao, Gittens, Garnacho, Guiu, George

Curd. :lol:

Oh it’s better than that, Ted Curd.

That’s a great name. Like the name of an illiterate poacher in a Thomas Hardy novel

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Ted Curd. :lol:

I do think of him as a 70 year old farmer.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Slavia Prague 2-2 Bodo/Glimt in the end!

[McNamara That Ghost...]

1-0 Liverpool, Robertson.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

2-0, Salah.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

PSG 1-0 Atalanta, Marquinhos.

[IBK]

I have to say that Ally McCoist is ruining my enjoyment of televised football. He seems to be commentator on every game I watch and I find him incredibly irritating.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Bayern 1-0 Chelsea. :lol:

Retaken freekick after the ref blocked the first one.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Pelanty to Bayern!

:lol:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

2-0 Kane!

:haha:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

2-1 Chelsea, Palmer.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

PSG 2-0 Atalanta, Kvaratskhelia

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Ajax 0-1 Inter, Thuram.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Liverpool 2-1 Atleti, Llorente!

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Ajax 0-2 Inter, Thuram with his second.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

PSG 3-0 Atalanta, Nuno Mendes.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Bayern 3-1 Chelsea, Kane with his second!

:haha:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Liverpool 2-2 Atleti, Llorente!

What a fucking volley.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Oh it was deflected. :lol:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

PSG 4-0 Atalanta, Ramos.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

3-2 Liverpool, Van Dijk.

[WMUG]

Fuck off :lol:

[Letters]

Fuck off :lol:

:gp:

Holy shit how can they possibly keep on getting this jammy?

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

Would only have had ourselves to blame for that one, we missed chance after chance after chance.

Our first goal was certainly lucky (though always worth having a pop at goal, you make your...:ninja:) but I can't see how their first wasn't offside.
I'll be happy if Marcos Llorente never plays us again.

[IBK]

So...I don't watch many matches where Arsenal are not involved, but I watched Liverpool v Athleti last night. Was disappointed by yet another Liverpool late goal to win the tie.

And I started thinking why this keeps happening with them. Yes, you can say 'that's what Champions do', but there's a difference IMO between a team that is simply pushing everyone forward to try to win a game at the death, and what Liverpool do. Athleti are no patsys when it comes to defending. There is a purpose to Liverpool when going for the late win - an intent that is not simply panic/desperation - that is menacing. This is different to my recollection of us trying to reverse dropped points last season.

For me, this is not simply down to good luck. I think that Slot's most impressive achievement since he arrived is building a team whose levels do not drop even after 90 minutes. Liverpool's fitness levels are unvbelieveable, and achieved with a team revelling in broken play and making dynamic runs all game - in contrast to Arsenal's more controlled, often even pedestrian style that I believe has partly been with an eye on preserving stamina.

The impressive part is that Slot seems to have achieved this level of fitness/stamina without breaking his players (maybe because of this).

Of course, there's also the self-belief which is a virtuous circle. The more Liverpool score these late goals, the more the players believe that they will come - and with belief comes mental clarity rather than panic.

I hope very much that Arteta, with such strong benches now at his disposal, will achieve similar levels - as there are bound to be situations this season where we also need to score late. The Bilbao game midweek saw evidence of this, with our late subs both scoring and creating our goals.

[HCZ_Reborn]

See where I disagree is that it’s not tenable for a team to be consistently having to chase a win in the last knockings of a game. And that’s been the story for Liverpool every game this season, now with the exception of Burnley they’ve been able to do that because as you say their attacking ability or with us a one off bit of magic. But the reason they are having to do it is because they are vulnerable at the back, the main difference between Arsenal and Liverpool is that if we had managed to come out of the blocks and get a 2-0 lead early that would be the game done (in the last three years there has been three occasions where we’ve blown a 2 goal lead and each time it’s because our defence was significantly compromised by injury)

I think it’s actually arguable that Bournemouth and Atletico could have shown more courage and pushed for a winner but they were punished because (a bit like us) they tried to settle for a draw.

[HCZ_Reborn]

De Bruyne starts for Napoli at Man City

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Club Brugge 4-1 Monaco from earlier.

Copenhagen 2-2 Bayer Leverkusen,

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Man City: Donnarumma; Khusanov, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly; Rodri; Bernardo, Reijnders, Foden, Doku; Haaland.
Subs: Trafford, Bettenelli, Ake, Nico, Savinho, Nunes, Bobb, Mukasa, Lewis, Mfuni.

Napoli: Milinkovic-Savic; Di Lorenzo, Beukema, Buongiorno, Spinazzola; Lobotka; Politano, Anguissa, De Bruyne, McTominay; Hojlund.
Subs: Meret, Ferrante, Gutierrez, Juan Jesus, Gilmour, Neres, Olivera, Elmas, Vergara,Lucca, Ambrosino, Lang.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Newcastle United: Pope, Trippier, Schar, Burn, Livramento, Tonali, Guimaraes, Joelinton, Elanga, Gordon, Barnes
Subs: Thompson, Ramsdale, Hall, Botman, Thiaw, Krafth, Osula, J. Murphy, Woltemade, Willock, A.Murphy, Miley

Barcelona : J Garcia, Kounde, Araújo, Cubarsi, Martín, Pedri, De Jong, Raphinha, Fermín López, Rashford, Lewandowski
Subs: Ferran, Christensen, Casado, Olmo, Bernal, Eric, Szczesny, Jofre, Roony, Fernandez, Kochen

[HCZ_Reborn]

Club Brugge 4-1 Monaco from earlier.

Copenhagen 2-2 Bayer Leverkusen,

Brugge might be a tricky opponent

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Newcastle should be 1-0 up.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Brugge might be a tricky opponent

We don't play them for quite a while though so could be a lot different then.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Tino Asprilla is there! :bow:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Eintracht Frankfurt 0-1 Galatasaray, Akgun.

Rashford. :lol:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Fletcher and McCoist are a bit excitable.

However not having to endure Rio all season long is glorious.

[HCZ_Reborn]

We don't play them for quite a while though so could be a lot different then.

I watched Bruges last season and they can be good on their day, they took apart Atalanta

Not saying we will struggle, I just think we shouldn’t take them for granted when we do play them

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Di Lorenzo sent off for Napoli, I thought he got a feather touch on the ball tbh.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Conte will deploy catenaccio like you've never seen before now. :bow:

Well not since us there last season anyway.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Joan Garcia is a fucking good keeper.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Newcastle playing at a hundred miles an hour but a waste of everyone's time without a striker up there.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Frankfurt 1-1 Galatasaray, Sanchez OG.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Sporting 1-0 Kairat, Trincao

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Frankfurt 2-1 Galatasaray, Uzun.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Sporting 1-0 Kairat, Trincao

So when Kairat plays its first home match in the CL it will be 17:45 KO our time but 21:45 their time and post the clocks going back it will be 22:45 for its remaining home matches (Kazakhstan does not observe DST)

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Kairat's games in December are at 15:30 our time, well GMT for us by then. :lol:

Frankfurt 3-1 Galatasaray.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Man City 1-0 Napoli, Haaland.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Newcastle 0-1 Barcelona, Rashford

Great header.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Now Newcastle are bringing Woltemade on. :doh:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Man City 2-0 Napoli, Doku.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Sporting 3-0 Kairat.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

0-2 Barcelona, holy fuck Rashford, what a strike.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

4-0 Sporting now.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Frankfurt 5-1 Galatasaray. :lol:

[HCZ_Reborn]

Kairat's games in December are at 15:30 our time, well GMT for us by then. :lol:

Frankfurt 3-1 Galatasaray.

Ah well that makes sense

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Sporting 4-1 Kairat! :bow:

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Newcastle 1-2 Barcelona, Gordon!

[McNamara That Ghost...]

But that's how it finishes.

[HCZ_Reborn]

0-2 Barcelona, holy fuck Rashford, what a strike.

What i’d call a howitzer

Rashford is a strange one. Ostensibly nice lad, clearly has it within him to be a top footballer but you wonder how much all his campaigning and becoming a public figure got to his head. Don’t get me wrong I think campaigning for free school meals comes from a place where he was growing up in a state of precariousness. But with that and the publishing of that book series, makes you wonder if it all inflated his ego rather.

[Letters]

Rashford definitely has some ability, although I raised an eyebrow at Barca wanting him. Literally a week or two ago there were stories about them already looking at terminating his contract.
Now 1 good game later he's being proclaimed as the new Messi (slight exaggeration there, but people do massively overreact to individual games and performances).

[Marc Overmars]

His application at United was questionable but a lot of that was also down to the state of the club and it being an environment where almost every player with ability has suffered over the past decade.

I’ve always felt Rashford was a decent player and clearly on his day he can be electric. I remember there was some paper talk of us potentially being interested a year or two ago and I would not have complained had it happened.

[Letters]

I’ve always felt Rashford was a decent player and clearly on his day he can be electric. I remember there was some paper talk of us potentially being interested a year or two ago and I would not have complained had it happened.
I felt he was worth a punt in January but it wasn't a popular opinion on here

[IBK]

See where I disagree is that it’s not tenable for a team to be consistently having to chase a win in the last knockings of a game. And that’s been the story for Liverpool every game this season, now with the exception of Burnley they’ve been able to do that because as you say their attacking ability or with us a one off bit of magic. But the reason they are having to do it is because they are vulnerable at the back, the main difference between Arsenal and Liverpool is that if we had managed to come out of the blocks and get a 2-0 lead early that would be the game done (in the last three years there has been three occasions where we’ve blown a 2 goal lead and each time it’s because our defence was significantly compromised by injury)

I think it’s actually arguable that Bournemouth and Atletico could have shown more courage and pushed for a winner but they were punished because (a bit like us) they tried to settle for a draw.

I think that both things can be, and are true.

Liverpool's late results are undoubtedly down to fitness; stamina; attacking nous and self-belief, and I think that to put this down to just luck does Slot a disservice (not that you have done so).

But you are correct to look at why they have had to do this. There are consequences of focussing on an all out attcking style that in some ways is the antithesis of Areteta's focus on control (albeit that we saw a more conservative, and unremarked, different approach from Liverpool when we played them at Anfield a couple of weeks ago). One of these is vulnerability at the back to teams willing to take risks themselves in what is often the wide open play that Liverpool tends to thrive in. And that - together with Slot's focus on signing attacking players - is what can leave them vulnerable at the back.

It takes a lot of bravery to go toe to toe with a team with an attack of the speed and quality of Liverpool's, and Slot undoubtedly relies on this to discourage opponents putting his defence under damaging pressure. We have to hope that other managers will see this, and look to try to exploit what seems like an imbalance/weakness by going forwards rather than playing the game Slot wants them to play. The frustrating thing about our result is that we are one of the few teams with the struture and players who can both remain defensively solid and do this.

[Mac76]

I felt he was worth a punt in January but it wasn't a popular opinion on here

I wasn't against it, but I think we'd stymied ourselves by having two PL loans (Neto and Sterling) already and that's the most a team is allowed to have

[IBK]

That's a curious way of looking at it mate. All teams want points. They are not going to be motivated by doing us a favour. And there are plenty of decent teams in the league with astute managers who should be able to spot the weak spot in Liverpool's game. If you are suggesting that all teams in the league will 'roll over' and play into Liverpool's hands by trying to defend for 90 minutes I think that's a long shot.

[HCZ_Reborn]

I think that both things can be, and are true.

Liverpool's late results are undoubtedly down to fitness; stamina; attacking nous and self-belief, and I think that to put this down to just luck does Slot a disservice (not that you have done so).

But you are correct to look at why they have had to do this. There are consequences of focussing on an all out attcking style that in some ways is the antithesis of Areteta's focus on control (albeit that we saw a more conservative, and unremarked, different approach from Liverpool when we played them at Anfield a couple of weeks ago). One of these is vulnerability at the back to teams willing to take risks themselves in what is often the wide open play that Liverpool tends to thrive in. And that - together with Slot's focus on signing attacking players - is what can leave them vulnerable at the back.

It takes a lot of bravery to go toe to toe with a team with an attack of the speed and quality of Liverpool's, and Slot undoubtedly relies on this to discourage opponents putting his defence under damaging pressure. We have to hope that other managers will see this, and look to try to exploit what seems like an imbalance/weakness by going forwards rather than playing the game Slot wants them to play. The frustrating thing about our result is that we are one of the few teams with the struture and players who can both remain defensively solid and do this.

See where I disagree is that this is a consequence of playing style, it’s a consequence of players. Van Dijk is slow now, Konate has one good game and one shit game and they single mindedly prioritised attack over defence. So it’s more of a consequence of transfer policy.

Physically fit going forward means fuck all if they cannot reliably score enough goals to bridge clear deficiencies elsewhere on the pitch.

Bournemouth and Atletico may well have lost if they had tried to go for the win. They definitely lost as a result of holding on to what they had

[Mac76]

That's a curious way of looking at it mate. All teams want points. They are not going to be motivated by doing us a favour. And there are plenty of decent teams in the league with astute managers who should be able to spot the weak spot in Liverpool's game. If you are suggesting that all teams in the league will 'roll over' and play into Liverpool's hands by trying to defend for 90 minutes I think that's a long shot.

Not at all, up to a couple of seasons ago, people were saying with some justification that every team that faced Citeh basically did so believing they'd probably lose and either half-heartedly tried to play a bit at the beginning then shut up shop when conceding the first goal, or simply parked the bus to begin with - whereas every team tried to beat us - it gave Citeh an advantage

We need that same aura and it doesn't come from playing 3 DMs at Anfield

[McNamara That Ghost...]

My feeling is that by winning so many late early only adds to build up of emotional energy spent very early on in the season.

It's alright for now and perhaps it carries them through until they start playing well.

But I'd stop myself short of thinking it's neccesarily a good thing - not game after game.

[Mac76]

Lots of people on here said last season that Liverpool couldn't possibly sustain the pace whereas I said they could and well might, take a look at last season's table to see who was rigbt

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Lots of people is a massive exaggeration and you know it.

[HCZ_Reborn]

I also don’t recall Liverpool being so vulnerable at the back, in their first six games in all competitions they have conceded eight goals. Last season it was two (and they scored 13 then compared to 14 then)

Liverpool’s current form is more akin to the run City was on last season before things went off the rails big time. I don’t necessarily think Liverpool are going to go into a tail spin like that. But i think they will be forced into a rethink if they face a team that soaks up the pressure and breaks heavily on them.

They could retain the title but like last season it will be a result of our coach being a control freak imbecile

[IBK]

Not at all, up to a couple of seasons ago, people were saying with some justification that every team that faced Citeh basically did so believing they'd probably lose and either half-heartedly tried to play a bit at the beginning then shut up shop when conceding the first goal, or simply parked the bus to begin with - whereas every team tried to beat us - it gave Citeh an advantage

We need that same aura and it doesn't come from playing 3 DMs at Anfield

3 different points here, though. The first (admittedly facetious) point I was making is that no team plays with the intent of doing anyone else a favour. This is what I found curious.

The second issue is whether teams will roll over for Liverpool. My hope is that managers of teams with aspirations of finishing as high as they can will take the game to them. Particularly as trying to shut up shop is likely to be unsuccessful. I take the point that we didn't really do this when playing at Anfield, and I agree with you that other teams will be cautious going there. I still hold out hope however that in a league where there are a number of very good managers and stronger teams generally than when Citeh ruled the roost Liverpool won't simply win games by turning up. I think that their performances this season have shown that Liverpool are not invulnerable. Their late wins could be encouragement for others as well as for them.

The third is our own aura. I think that we are now also a feared team. Liverpool gave us a lot of respect a couple of weeks ago, and for a while now other teams have been cautious in their set ups against us. What we need to do to hold the psychological edge that you think will be Liverpool's advantage is to show that we too can deal with the low block.