What a weekend of European soccer! We have Liverpool top of the Premier League again as Arsenal lost at Newcastle and Manchester City were defeated at Bournemouth. We saw Barcelona turn on the style again and defeat their local rivals Espanyol to take a nine-point lead atop LaLiga. Also, Bayern Munich won a third straight match in the Bundesliga to build a three-point cushion between them and the chasing pack.
It’s Monday. Gab Marcotti reacts to the biggest moments in the world of soccer.
Editor’s Note: There will be more Marcotti Musings published after the Gab & Juls Podcast! Check back later for the remainder of his thoughts on a superb weekend of action across the continent …
Mikel Arteta didn’t hide after Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat at Newcastle. He didn’t bring up the fact that his team outshot the opposition or had twice Newcastle’s expected goals. He didn’t cry about injuries or Declan Rice not connecting cleanly with his late chance.
“We deserved to lose today,” he said. “We got dragged into the game Newcastle wanted and not the one we wanted.”
What he meant, presumably, is that Newcastle outhustled and outmuscled them and turned it into a game about intensity, rather than control and individual quality. And here, Arsenal were no match.
Now, it’s easy to make fun of Arteta when he notes that Newcastle are “big and physical” — Anthony Gordon is neither, and it’s not as if Rice, Kai Havertz, William Saliba and Gabriel are a bunch of weaklings — but you can see his point. The nice thing about having more skill in your side is that sometimes you can take your foot off the gas. But only sometimes, and only to a point.
This is where injuries come into play, of course: Riccardo Calafiori, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Martin Odegaard were all out (though Newcastle’s injury list is even longer and, arguably, more important). But more than that, it’s an issue of workload.
Havertz has played every minute of every league and Champions League game this season. Rice and Saliba would have too, if not for their red cards. Thomas Partey and Gabriel have also started every game (bar the League Cup). That adds up, not necessarily in terms of performance, but certainly in terms of bringing the right intensity in every game.
Injuries haven’t helped, but it does feel like Arteta is reluctant to put much faith into his players beyond the first 14 or 15 names. I’m not sure he can afford to do that. (News on Monday that sporting director Edu, a longtime Arteta friend and colleague, is set to leave the club will also add stress to this situation.)
After his team’s 3-0 home defeat, Napoli boss Antonio Conte said, “Atalanta are a better team, they’ve been on a journey for years …” He’s probably right on both counts, but it’s worth noting that the “journey” that he talks about is more about the club and the mentality than the personnel. Half the XI who resoundingly won at the San Paolo weren’t at the club just 18 months ago, and yet they look as if they’ve been working in Gian Piero Gasperini’s system for years, mainly because, yes, he’s a great coach at a very well-run club.
Five top-five finishes in the past six years and the Europa League victory over mighty Bayer Leverkusen last season, all against better resourced opponents, speak to a club and coach who are very much in sync and who simply make better choices than the competition. And consistency engenders belief and buy-in, which is why it’s easier for Gasperini to get his message across. Or, as he did on Sunday, drop Serie A’s leading goal scorer, Mateo Retegui, to the bench. Unorthodox? Sure. But who is going to question him when he’s got that much cred?
There’s a parallel there with Conte, of course, in the sense that he comes in with the big rep from day one and this season has earned that buy-in with his results (at least before Sunday, when Napoli had put together nine wins and one draw in their previous 10 games). It’s just that what Gasperini builds over time, he has to build in a few months, and he never really builds over time because, well, after getting out of the gates quickly, he tends not to stick around very long.
The warning signs were there for Napoli, despite their impressive run of form. They beat Milan without dominating in midweek, and before that, they had a couple of 1-0 wins (one deserved, one less so). Conte has the luxury of no European football and, broadly, getting the players he wanted in the summer. But you hope he’s the first to realize that his team aren’t where he wants them to be. That won’t happen until Romelu Lukaku starts producing, Billy Gilmour can fill Stanislav Lobotka’s shoes (or Lobotka returns) and David Neres can live up to his fee.
Big talking points still to come around noon ET/5 p.m. GMT: More Marcotti! Thoughts on Man United 1-1 Chelsea, Barcelona’s latest big win and more…
Bayern Munich roll on, the Barca debacle behind them: That’s three wins in a row for Bayern, 12 goals scored, nine conceded. And on Saturday, their 3-0 win came against Union Berlin, hardly pushovers as evidenced by the fact that they were joint third going into the game. Harry Kane bagged two (and is on pace for a 40-goal season), Jamal Musiala showed (again) why this team is nowhere near as good when he’s not there, but most encouraging I thought is how some of the more criticised players — central defenders Kim Min-Jae and Dayot Upamecano, Alphonso Davies out wide and the man in the middle, Joshua Kimmich — are all clicking nicely.
Juventus win, but we might as well get used to them being inconsistent for a while: With this Juve side, the worst thing you can do is have a knee-jerk reaction to every result: They were horrendous against Stuttgart, impressive in the comeback against Inter, poor at home against Parma in midweek and now good again in a 2-0 away win at Udinese. They looked good in spots, Kenan Yildiz showed (again) that he’s a player-and-a-half, Teun Koopmeiners started and Khephren Thuram had his best game in a Juventus shirt. The flip side? Udinese were poor (Kenan Davis aside), possession was too often sterile, Lorenzo Lucca hit the woodwork and Michele Di Gregorio had to make a big save. The upshot? Up-and-down performances are normal for young sides missing key players and with a newly installed coach who sees the game differently than his predecessors. Nothing wrong with that.
Liverpool show signs of wear, but come back to beat Brighton and go top: Arne Slot himself complained about how poor they looked in the first half, when Brighton scored one and could have had more. Blame it on a combination of Brighton being a tough out, some individuals having an off day (Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai spring to mind) and the accumulated fatigue of Champions League football for a side that doesn’t rotate much. Some oomph off the bench, a bit of luck on Cody Gakpo’s goal and some magic from Mohamed Salah turned it around. Slot and Liverpool enter the week on top of the Premier League table. It’s understandable that he hasn’t rotated much thus far, but to stay top down the stretch, he’ll likely need to do it far more.
Milan grind out a 1-0 win at Monza, but this doesn’t feel like a Fonseca team: I say this because he made his name with sides that were dynamic and possession-oriented. This Milan side are dynamic but too often incapable of doing much with the ball, especially against opponents who sit tight like Monza did. Their best work — and Tijjani Reijnders’ goal — came in transition. Sure, Rafael Leão was on the bench again (he came on and delivered a moment of fruitless magic) and Youssouf Fofana needs to find his feet as a playmaker, but right now so much of the difference-making moments in this team come from individuals: like Mike Maignan’s save off Pedro Pereira or Theo Hernández turning on the afterburners or Christian Pulisic running himself into the ground. That whole value-add thing isn’t there yet, and Real Madrid are next up midweek in the Champions League …
Wasteful PSG held to one goal by 10-man Lens as Marco Asensio gets his turn to audition up front: Ousmane Dembélé broke the ice early on and you were hoping for an open, competitive game between Paris Saint-Germain and Lens. Instead it was one-way traffic, with Luis Enrique’s team piling up (and missing) their chances and Lens flailing (other than Brice Samba’s heroics in goal). Lens going down to 10 men early in the second half obviously didn’t help matters. After trying Lee Kang-In and Dembele in the role, we saw Marco Asensio get the nod at center forward. He’ll get criticism for the missed chances, but if you’re going to insist on a “false nine,” he’s probably a better option than the other two. Or, you could just keep it simple and give poor old Randal Kolo Muani — you know, the guy PSG paid 75 million in transfer fees for 15 months ago — a run of games? He has just two starts this season and was an unused sub this weekend.
Man City’s unbeaten league streak ends at 32 with deserved defeat at Bournemouth: First, hats off to Bournemouth and Andoni Iraola because in their past three games, they beat Arsenal and City and got a point away to Aston Villa. Saturday’s win over City was comprehensive, especially in a first half in which the defending champions notched zero shots on target and mustered an xG of only 0.18. (Even with Erling Haaland’s late close-range double misses, Bournemouth still won the xG battle, 2.04 to 1.56.) Obviously you question Pep at your peril — he has the record to back it up — but his squad management is, sometimes, curious. He started Kyle Walker, who apparently had all of six minutes of training and had a rough game and left him on for 90 minutes. This, despite having Rico Lewis on the bench. Despite being 2-0 down and creating close to nothing, his only two changes were sending on Lewis with 17 minutes left and Jérémy Doku with five left. Savinho stayed rooted to the bench, as did Kevin De Bruyne (who hasn’t played in six weeks, but presumably can hit a dead ball). Sure, injuries bite, but on this occasion, I’m not sure Pep made things better.
Tap-ins still to come around noon ET/5 p.m. GMT: Thoughts on Inter Milan, Borussia Dortmund vs. RB Leipzig, Atletico Madrid and Tottenham vs. Aston Villa …