-
Gabriele Marcotti, Senior Writer, ESPN FC
The final weekend before Christmas brought plenty of gifts for us across Europe’s Big Five leagues. In LaLiga, Atlético Madrid came back from 1-0 down to stun Barcelona 2-1 and take top spot heading into a brief winter break. In the Premier League, Liverpool took full advantage of Tottenham’s self-destructive tendencies to take home a 6-3 win and a four-point lead over Chelsea with a game in hand at the top of the table.
In Serie A, Atalanta got another game-winning performance from “Prince” Charles De Ketelaere as they took top spot from Napoli heading into the league’s brief pause for the holidays. Elsewhere, we got talking points galore for Man City (their swoon isn’t Erling Haaland’s fault), Arsenal (can Gabriel Jesus be the answer to their questions up front?), Borussia Dortmund (they won, but it was again wobbly), and Man United (Ruben Amorim’s job is looking a lot harder than we thought). Oh, and it is time to take Nottingham Forest seriously?
Let’s get to it. Here are musings and reactions to the most memorable moments of the weekend.
Editor’s note: Musings will return in full in the new year, with the first edition of 2025 dropping on Jan. 6. Happy holidays!
Old-school smash-and-grab sends Atletico into orbit, puts Barcelona in the dumps
This was the game they warned you about — the one Barca fans, if they’re being honest, knew was going to be on the cards. And it played out like their worst nightmare.
An hour into the top-of-the-table clash with Atletico Madrid on Sunday, you’d be hard-pressed to understand how Barca could be just a goal up. They had created a ton of chances, hit the crossbar and forced Jan Oblak into some big saves, all the while limiting Atletico to a single shot — and that was Clément Lenglet from inside his own half, for an xG of 0.01.
Then came Rodrigo De Paul, smacking it from outside the box to score the most improbable of equalisers. No matter. Barca did what Hansi Flick’s Barca does, beavering away with more chances: Dani Olmo, Eric García, Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha all had opportunities to restore their lead.
Mixed in there was Pablo Barrios’ chance, snuffed out by Iñaki Peña — a warning that, maybe, they were playing into Atletico’s hands and maybe this was more a “can’t lose” than a “must win” at this stage. And finally, with virtually the last kick of the game, following a Barca turnover, the substitutes, Nahuel Molina and Alexander Sorloth combined to score Atletico’s winner, with the ball, cruelly, passing through Pau Cubarsí’s legs.
You want to go doom and gloom? Go for it. This is Barcelona’s third straight home defeat, something which had not happened in nearly 60 years. At the start of November, Barcelona had a 10-point lead over Atletico Madrid. Now, at the Christmas break, they’re three points back and they’ve played one more game.
Who is to blame? It’s easy to highlight the spurned chances and focus on the guy (Lewandowski) whose job it is to convert them, not least because he doesn’t contribute much else. Many of us had reservations about pinning your hopes on a 36-year-old striker; then again, the man has 23 goals in 24 games across all competitions. Are you really going to scapegoat him?
Lamine Yamal’s absence weighs heavily, but your fortunes can’t depend on a 17-year-old. Nor can you really fault picking Fermín López ahead of Olmo. He also missed chances, but he also delivered the sort of drive you need against Atleti.
If you want to nitpick, maybe you can question the risk-taking late in the game when it was clear Atleti had kicked up a notch, with Molina, Sorloth and Koke entering the pitch and Simeone switching his side to a back three. Flick was suspended; maybe if he’d been there, he would have better sensed the moment, but again, this is his brand of football. You have to take the good with the bad, and he wasn’t the one missing chances.
As for Atleti, this was almost stereotypical “Cholismo.” Nicking a winner like that in a match where you concede so many chances plays to the never-say-die trope and makes his substitutions look like strokes of genius. Then again, I doubt his plan was to end the first half without a single shot on goal and get battered for the first hour or so; nor was it to give up the sort of sitters his back line offered Barcelona in the final minutes.
1:01
Burley: Barcelona ‘only have themselves to blame’ for late Atletico defeat
Craig Burley says Barcelona’s inability to finish a number of chances came back to bite them in their 2-1 defeat to Atletico Madrid.
That said, Simeone and Atleti are top of LaLiga for Christmas, and deservedly so. You don’t win 12 consecutive games by accident. Sure, it has become fashionable to talk about how deep his squad, with some suggesting that it’s the deepest in Europe from 1 to 20. But let’s not forget that his squad includes guys whom nobody wanted (like Lenglet) and guys who are well into their 30s (Antoine Griezmann, Axel Witsel and, before his injury, César Azpilicueta). Also, a deeper squad without clear-cut hierarchies is often more difficult to motivate and manage.
In that sense, Simeone is a master of the craft.
Liverpool crush Spurs, but what did we learn?
I mean, about Liverpool? Because this was such an odd game against an opponent hell-bent on self-destruction, you need to grade on a curve. We know Liverpool are very good, we know that Trent Alexander-Arnold can put the ball just about anywhere he likes, we know that Mohamed Salah can be unplayable at times (witness how we wiggled through three defenders before hitting the crossbar), we know Ryan Gravenberch has gone to the next level. We knew all that.
I guess we learned Arne Slot can make tactical adjustments to exploit opposition weaknesses, like he did by pushing Dominik Szoboszlai further up the pitch against Yves Bissouma, effectively turning the scheme into a 4-2-4. But that wasn’t rocket science, either; that was what you expect from a coach of his level.
Oh, and we learned that Slot can do “managerspeak” with the best of them, lamenting the two late goals they conceded in the 6-3 win by noting how they need to play for 90 minutes, not 70. Sure, Arne, but I defy anyone, at 5-1 up on the road and with a bunch of games around the corner, to not let up a little. That’s a human response, but I guess it’s Slot’s job to chase perfection.
1:00
Echegaray: Salah will go down as a top-five Premier League player
Luis Miguel Echegaray reacts to another stellar Mohamed Salah performance in Liverpool’s thumping 6-3 win over Tottenham.
As for Spurs, games like these only turn the screws on manager Ange Postecoglou and his high-risk, high-reward approach, but there are two points to make here.
One is that unforced errors were a big part of Spurs’ problem on Sunday, and that’s not down to Postecoglou’s system. The way they switched off tor Szoboszlai’s goal just before the break, after pulling one back to make it 1-2, is exactly what teams at every level are taught not to do. The other is that if you want to play like this, you need chemistry, because so much of your defensive movements need to be precisely coordinated.
Postecoglou himself pointed out that he was without four of his first-choice back five (keeper included). Fine, but if you’re fielding a group that has never played together, why are you asking them to do something that’s objectively difficult without endless time together on the training pitch? Why not, just for this game, simplify things a little bit, rather than playing directly to the opposition’s strengths?
It’s clear Postecoglou has a lot to offer, but days like Sunday make you wonder whether he’ll get the time to show what he can do.
The Prince’s time has come as Atalanta celebrate Christmas at the top of Serie A
That’s Charles De Ketelaere to you. The “Prince” scored twice in Atalanta’s 3-2 win at Empoli — a far more hard-fought game than many expected — and he is a huge part of Atalanta’s rise to the top of Serie A. Beyond that, his progress since leaving Milan two summers ago has been a case study in potential and scouting.
De Ketelaere joined the Rossoneri for €35m in 2022 and in his first season, featured 40 times without scoring a single goal, which is objectively hard to do. After moving to Atalanta (initially on loan) he notched 14 goals last season and this year, he’s in double figures already, with nine assists. He’s still just 23 years old and his combination of strength, size, vision and technical ability suggests he’s still going to get better.
Why did Milan write him off so quickly after working so hard and scouting him so heavily? It’s a valid question, since there’s a parallel universe where De Ketelaere sticks around, takes his play up a notch and they don’t end up splashing out money on Luka Jovic and Samuel Chukwueze. The knock was that they couldn’t find the right position for him on the pitch and that he was “soft.” (Having seen him go toe-to-toe with Antonio Rüdiger recently, I assure you the man is not soft.)
Clubs make mistakes and live with regret all the time. It happens to the greatest managers — ask Jose Mourinho about Mohamed Salah and Kevin De Bruyne, or Pep Guardiola about Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers — why shouldn’t it happen to Stefano Pioli? I’m just glad he landed in a place that showcases his abundant talent.
Erling Haaland takes it on the chin, but he’s the solution and not the problem as Aston Villa pummel Man City
The big man did not mince his words after Manchester City fell 2-1 to Aston Villa, their ninth defeat in the past 12 games, saying: “I haven’t been good enough and I haven’t delivered for City this season. I need to step up and work harder … it just isn’t good enough.”
Pep Guardiola quashed this line of thinking, pointing out how much worse they’d be without him, but it was still telling to hear Haaland’s self-criticism. Earlier this season, he was missing plenty of chances (while also scoring a ton). Now he’s just not seeing very much of the ball.
Man City’s ills have been well-chronicled and while everybody has a theory (multiple ones), I tend to go with the simplest. The press isn’t working as it should, which means the midfield gets overrun more often — also because there’s no Rodri safety blanket — and that exposes the defenders who on the main aren’t as good as they were, in part because it’s easier to defend when you face only a couple danger situations a game rather than a dozen or so.
1:30
Marcotti: Haaland is part of the solution at Man City
Gab & Juls praise Erling Haaland after his self-critical post-match interview following Man City’s defeat to Aston Villa.
I have no clue how Guardiola and City are going to get out of this, but it may be time to use Haaland as something more than merely an attacking terminus. With City’s buildup having become slow and predictable, defenders have an easier time dealing with him.
All that said, City’s woes though should take nothing away from Aston Villa, who won this game comprehensively. Unai Emery outfoxed the opposition, made the brave choice of dropping Ollie Watkins for Jhon Durán, used Youri Tielemans and Morgan Rogers in midfield to devastating effect and in recent weeks got his side to bounce back from their own run of futility (eight without a win).
Quick hits
10. Four-goal Patrik Schick fills Victor Boniface’s big boots: The knock on Patrik Schick has always been that he’s less than the sum of his parts. Tall, gifted and blessed with vision to score and assist, the eye test tells you he has everything. And yet, injuries and sudden unexplained losses of form mean that he’s really only put together two top-notch campaigns in his 10-year career: one at Sampdoria the year he turned 21, and the year before Xabi Alonso arrived in Leverkusen, when he notched 24 league goals. That’s probably why the club spent big to bring in Boniface two years ago, and why most of Schick’s starts have come during the Nigerian’s injury spells (three months last year, since early November this season). On Saturday, however, Schick bagged four goals in Bayer Leverkusen’s 5-1 demolition of Freiburg. (Florian Wirtz had a hat-trick of assists, scored a goal and missed a penalty, but his quality, rightly, is never in question.) Schick is up to 14 goals in all competitions at the midway mark of the 2024-25 campaign — not a bad haul for a backup striker. Still, you wonder just how good Leverkusen could be if he maintained this level all the time.
9. It’s time to take Nottingham Forest seriously: Some of us sneered at Nuno Espirito Santo and giggled at Evangelos Marinakis for his spitting/expectorating on the floor. Who’s laughing now? After their 2-0 win at Brentford (who had taken 22 of a possible 24 points before Saturday), they’re fourth in the table and Chris Wood (!) is in double figures. Have they been a little lucky? Sure, they’re ninth in XG difference if that’s your jam, but they also have the third best defence in the Premier League both in goals conceded and xG conceded. A lot of us are eating humble pie…
1:30
Moreno: Real Madrid showed their potential in big Sevilla win
After beating Sevilla 4-2 in LaLiga, Ale Moreno says Real Madrid showed signs of the team they were expected to become with the signing of Kylian Mbappe.
8. Kylian Mbappé shines against Sevilla as Real Madrid find their balance (and it’s very attacking): And, I might add, you wonder whether it can work against better teams than Sevilla. Or indeed, with Vinícius (who was suspended) on the pitch. Still, the set-up in the 4-2 win — with Jude Bellingham playing almost alongside Mbappe up front to help the latter be more involved, Brahim Díaz and Rodrygo wide and Eduardo Camavinga at left back — did what it was supposed to do, at least on the attacking end: create chances. Don’t be fooled by the fact that Madrid’s first two goals (from Mbappe and Fede Valverde) were long-range strikes with a combined xG of 0.03: They created plenty more chances and besides, when those guys load up from distance, it’s rarely a hit-and-hope. I’m not sure it’s a blueprint against better sides — the midfield risks being overrun, the defence still looked more vulnerable than it should — but they showed they can click up front and maximise their talent. And that’s a big step.
7. Gabriel Jesus runs riot as Arsenal stomp Crystal Palace, but is he the answer: I don’t think so, and regular readers will know where I stand on this. Like Pep Guardiola, I don’t see Jesus as a viable game-in, game-out center-forward at this level. That said, there’s nothing wrong with riding the hot hand (foot?) and that’s what Mikel Arteta did, giving him the start up front after his League Cup hat trick in midweek and shifting Kai Havertz back into midfield. Jesus bagged two in the 5-1 road win and it really could have been four if you count him hitting the post for Arsenal’s third, and missing from point-blank range ahead of the fourth. It’s an option I guess, not least because Havertz will need a breather, but with Bukayo Saka going down with a hamstring injury, I’d imagine Arteta has bigger issues to deal with than to continue with this experiment.
1:34
Burley: Arsenal will find replacing Saka ‘almost impossible’
Craig Burley and Ale Moreno worry for Bukayo Saka after the Arsenal winger was spotted leaving Selhurst Park on crutches.
6. Kauã Santos blunders and statistical improbability send Eintracht into the twilight zone: You’re not going to see numbers like this anytime soon. On Saturday, Eintracht Frankfurt hosted Mainz and played with an extra man for more than 70 minutes. They outshot the opposition 34-9 (9-3 on target) and put together an xG of 2.58 (to 0.60), but still they contrived to lose 3-1. It’s true that Mainz are the Bundesliga form team (they’ve now won five of six, including victories against Borussia Dortmund and Bayern), but that doesn’t carry over into playing 10 vs. 11 (unless you’re superstitious) and in any case, the numbers don’t suggest they played particularly well. Yes, Eintracht reserve keeper Kaua Santos made two colossal errors that led directly to two Mainz goals — stuff happens — but scoring just once against 10 men for 70 minutes when you take that many shots? That’s extreme statistical variance … or something downright supernatural.
5. Borussia Dortmund last only 45 minutes, but it’s enough for their first away league win of the season: What can I say? Dortmund gonna Dortmund. Nuri Sahin opted for an attacking vibe — Donyell Malen back for his first start in a month, Jamie Gittens on the other, Maximilian Beier alongside Serhou Guirassy up front — and it worked a treat in the first half as they raced to a 3-0 lead at the break. (Wolfsburg’s ineptitude at the back had a lot to do with it.) Then came a second half in which Wolfsburg pulled one back, Pascal Gross (who really should know better at his age) got himself sent off, and they conceded loads of chances while managing just two shots on goal for an xG of 0.09. Hey, it’s three points. But in terms of consistency, Sahin is still miles away from where he needs his team to be.
1:17
Do Chelsea have a problem when Cole Palmer isn’t firing?
Luis Miguel Echegaray reacts to Chelsea’s frustrating 0-0 draw at Everton which prevents Enzo Maresca’s men from going top of the Premier League.
4. Just like Arsenal, Chelsea get blunted by Everton: And just like the Gunners, the Blues will be happy they don’t need to play them again for a while. Sean Dyche’s brand of football isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it worked well on Sunday in a 0-0 draw. Sure, Chelsea had chances to win it (Nico Jackson, the wild Jordan Pickford challenge), but so did Everton, which is pretty much what Dyche wanted. Enzo Maresca takes home a good point and a renewed faith in his keeper, Robert Sánchez, who has kicked it up several notches after his early-season struggles.
3. Conte right to slam his players despite victory: Performance matters and shouldn’t be clouded by results. I’ve said it a million times; Antonio Conte gets it too. On Saturday, away to Genoa, Napoli raced to a 2-0 lead and dominated the opposition, playing “their best 45 minutes of the season” (Conte’s words). After the break, they fell apart badly as Genoa pulled one back and only some big Alex Meret saves prevented Napoli from dropping two points. This wasn’t Conte just playing “drill sergeant,” by the way: This was a much-needed rant. Napoli are out of the Coppa Italia and have no European football. Demanding that his team not sit on their laurels at 2-0 up is simply Conte doing his job.
1:26
Laurens: Amorim’s start at Man United isn’t good enough
Gab & Juls react to Man United’s loss to Bournemouth and their run of form so far under Ruben Amorim.
2. Rebuilding on the fly is tough, as Ruben Amorim is outcoached by Andoni Iraola: Forget the expected goals here, which favoured United: If you watched the game Bournemouth thoroughly deserved to win at Old Trafford (maybe not by three goals, but still). In a Slot-less world, Iraola would be a contender for coach of the year and he showed just why that’s the case, tying United up in knots with his intermittent press. The 3-0 Bournemouth win highlighted how tricky Amorim’s job is at Man United. He needs to assess the players in his squad (I assume this is why Tyrell Malacia and Joshua Zirkzee started), he needs to teach his system (a major departure from his predecessor) and he needs to deliver results, because the higher up the table United finish, the more resources they’ll have to bring in the players he needs. Sometimes those goals will be misaligned. Malacia really struggled, while Zirkzee confirmed he’s not a traditional No. 9. It’s a balancing act and on Sunday, the balance was well off.
1. New look, same issues for Thiago Motta and Juventus: But at least they won, beating Monza 2-1 on the road. That’s the good news. But against Serie A’s bottom club, who haven’t actually recorded a home league win in more than nine months, you expected more in terms of performance. Motta tried Weston McKennie at left-back (he scored and worked hard, but with Andrea Cambiaso back, we don’t need to see him again in that role) and played Nico Gonzalez through the middle alongside Teun Koopmeiners in a de facto 4-1-4-1. It’s an interesting conceit, but the general sluggishness and lack of urgency hasn’t gone away. Sure, Juve had lost just one in 24 in all competitions this season, but when they play like this, they look like a small club eking out results. And that’s not what Motta is here for.
