Champions League Takeaway: Amorim Stuns City, Liverpool Stay Perfect, Milan Maul Madrid & Everything Else

Champions League Takeaway: Amorim Stuns City, Liverpool Stay Perfect, Milan Maul Madrid & Everything Else

Hello Rank Squad!

It's time for Champions League Takeaway, your midnight feast of Champions League content - after one of the wildest weeks we have seen in the competition in recent times.

We start for a change, with Tuesday's games, opening with Sporting's huge 4-1 win over Manchester City - a parting gift from Ruben Amorim to the Jose Alvalade as City were cut open in transition again. Was it as bad as it looked? Maybe not, but the blue half of Manchester have some valid concerns, whilst the red half are ready to welcome their new manager with open arms.

Then it's on to Anfield, where Liverpool maintained their perfect record in the competition with a 4-0 win over Xabi Alonso and Bayer Leverkusen thanks to a Luis Diaz hat trick, and some more excellent half-time tweaks from Arne Slot, who got it right yet again.

Real Madrid were stunned at home by Milan, where Paulo Fonseca's use of Rafael Leão was next to perfect, and the questions about how Kylian Mbappé has unbalanced this team remain burning bright. Can Carlo Ancelotti turn this around or are the obvious holes in the defensive line too big to fill with superstars alone?

We round up the rest too: Celtic re-announced themselves in the competition with a big win at home to Leipzig, BVB dug out another win in their mini-resurgence, Malik Tillman starred as PSV beat Girona 4-0, Lille and Juventus shared the spoils in France, Monaco stayed hot with a late win in Bologna, and Dinamo Zagreb smashed four past competition whipping boys Slovan Bratislava.

Then in Part Two, we're onto Wednesday's action, which begins with Inter's narrow win over Arsenal that cemented them as genuine favourites and continued to pile the questions on Mikel Arteta about how to get the best out of this (admittedly depleted) Gunners side.

Also up for discussion is PSG's devastating late loss to Atletico Madrid and how the Parisiens just seem to lack confidence the moment anything goes against them, despite a bright start here; and Aston Villa's fatigued 1-0 loss to Club Brugge that will be headlined by a weird penalty call, but in reality was a pretty reasonable result - Villa were outplayed in Belgium.

We finish with a roundup of the rest of the Tuesday games - Barcelona hitting five in Belgrade against Crvena Zvezda as their front three continues to shine; Bayern's hard-fought but well-deserved win over Benfica; another clean sheet for Atalanta as they won 2-0 in Stuttgart; a first win for RB Salzburg as they shocked Feyenoord at De Kuip; Brest's third win from four as the Pirates set sail for Prague and plundered more points against Sparta; and Shakhtar Donetsk's Sudakov-inspired victory over Young Boys.

It's Ranks!

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?


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