Weekly updates from the world of football

Some of the big boys across Europe had a nightmare of a week as big clubs were shattered by their opponents. The likes of Manchester United and Bayern Munich were humiliated by Liverpool and Borussia Monchengladbach while Barcelona and Juventus once again dropped all three points in their respective leagues. Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid as well dropped two points each against Osasuna and Real Sociedad in La Liga. Meanwhile, Manchester City was knocked out by West Ham United in the Carabao cup.

Weird week, isn't it ? All these giant clubs are very much favorites to win the Champions League this year but all of them dropped some points in the same game week. Bayern losing to Monchengladbach was not only surprising but shocking as well. They are not just a strong team but thrash all their opponents in any regional tournament. Thus, losing 5-0 was not something that was expected from the team. They played some terrible football and their star defender Dayot Upamecano is under a lot of pressure. Coach Nagelsmann as well needs to step up on these big occasions because Bayern are not accustomed with this kind of a score line. If the boys don’t improve, he might get a call from the board soon! Though that’s very unlikely to happen as Bayern are doing good in the league and are leading the race.

That’s something we can’t say about Manchester United or Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. His team is playing some pathetic football and if he fails to win the next match against Tottenham Hotspurs, the Norwegian is definitely going home. Losing 5-0 against their arch rivals should have been the last pin to the coffin but their legendary manager, Sir Alex Ferguson decided to give him one more shot. However, by the looks of it, the time isn’t far when he’ll have to leave the club. Antonio Conte is up in the race.

Barcelona and Juventus are in a similar state. Both the teams lost their marquee player in the form of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and it hasn’t been the same for them ever since. Barca now lost two league matches in a row. They should have won against Rayo Vallecano but Radamel Falcao’s goal once again proved to be critical. Juventus on the other hand lost to Sassuolo in the final minute of the match. Maxime Lopez scored the goal in the 95th minute and with that, Juve lost the match by 2-1.

Manchester City lost their match in the penalties. Phil Foden missed the penalty and that proved to be critical. City won every edition of this tournament since 2016 but failed to deliver this time. It won’t hurt them much as they have bigger pictures in their mind.

The Madrid brothers, Real and Athletico went down after a good run of form. It was surprising to see Real Madrid drop points against Osasuna. They however moved up to the top of the table while Atletico Madrid is 7th in the table while Barcelona is 9th in the table. Needless to say that the finish will be a spectacle to see. Especially, when Barcelona sacked their coach Ronald Koeman and might just replace him with Xavi Hernandez.