Over a month ago, at the end of January, it was a clear yes. Today, it's a little bit blur. Last week, none of the 6 Premier League teams were able to win their first leg matches. Arsenal managed to draw against Leverkusen and tonight, at home, could certify their spot at QFs.
Chelsea plays against PSG at Stamford Bridge with the difficult task of reversing the 5-2 loss in Paris a week ago. The Blues have won all matches in European contest at home this year. Two of them with a gap of 3 or more goals. Let's see if they can repeat it. I am sure that Kvaratskhelia, Dembélé, Vitinha et al will make it really hard.
The third English team playing tonight, Man City, has a tougher mission. Real Madrid had plenty of injured starting players last week, including Mbappé, Bellingham, ... Even though several players from the Youth Team were starters in Real Madrid , they managed to beat the Citizens 3-0. Real Madrid transforms itself in European contests and this is another reason to believe that they may go through against the stakes.
Finally, the surprising Bodo/Glimt play in Lisbon tonight to confirm their great first leg result. They beat the Portuguese side 3-0 in Norway and it looks like that they will keep on this successful ride towards the QFs.
Good luck to everyone tonight!
Winning odds for today, only 1 PL team also?
Bit busy today so not able to write a post! Looks like only Liverpool with real chance to qualify.
Yeap it's feeling like a Brexit
Not looking so premier now.
With English sides you can always wait for a comeback. We'll see tonight.
Imo we're seeing again the calendar issue of the premier league, check the amount of matches played in between play in and now, the schedule the Britons play don't help fitness for the UCL, they need to manage this.
As an example Madrid played 7 times counting the play in games, City played 11 in the same window.
Well, last round of group phase was January 28th, since then Man City has played 11 matches and Real Madrid 10 (considering they were eliminated from the King's Cup which would have added another match). Chelsea has played 11 and PSG 9. Liverpool has played 10 and Galatasaray 12.
Also Tottenham has played 8 matches only and Atletico 13.
However, the big difference is over the Christmas and New Year Year period (December 20th and January 10th) where Premier League teams play up to 5 Premier League Matches and 1 FA Cup, meanwhile PSG has played just 3 matches, Galatasaray also 3 and Real Madrid 3 with the fourth played January 11th. Atletico played 3 in that window.
So it's difficult to keep the same performance all year long.
I got the games wrong, last month, they played the same, but only because Madrid had the play in. And you're absolutely right the real issue is the end of the year, imo the FA thinks the island is the whole world
There is always a debate in Spain about the comparison between La Liga and Premier League concerning the matches around Christmas and New Year. Many people think that we should follow what British do and schedule more matches during the Holidays. It's going to be great from a fan and business point of view, though I am not sure the same from players' point of view.
Perhaps being off peak at the end of the year and beginning of the new year may end up with better performance later on the year.
I think it's nuts, La Liga schedule benefits them in the European stage, and let's be honest, you have a really "easy" competition in Spain.
Premier League pace and physical demand is absurd, they need to understand that and balance better, otherwise they'll keep pretending UCL ain't that relevant
I agree, we have 2-3 top teams and the rest of them struggle when match gets physical. Most of teams are also struggling with the financial side of business which means worse signings. Finally, how money is distributed in Spain is not as fair as in England. There is a huge difference between top teams and middle and low teams.
There's a huge gap now within Barça and Real, it's really astonishing how shit went south at Catalunha.