Champions League is back!

It’s that time of the year when we turn our attention to UEFA Champions League once again. But wait, before we do that, let’s take a look at all the drama that took place in the past few days so we have a context to what is coming up.

 

It has been Manchester City’s season so far. Barring the exit from the FA Cup and effectively ending talks of a quadruple, it has been an almost perfect season for them so far. Winning the Carabao Cup against Arsenal at the Wembley Stadium is the highlight for them. But it did not stop there. They followed it up with a resounding victory against the same rivals with a similar scoreline a few days later in the league. More on Arsenal later, but at the moment the City juggernaut is hard to stop. They are not just winning games but they are doing it beautifully too. Pep Guardiola has turned them into an eye-catching winning machine and their upcoming Champions League game at home against Basel is now just a formality after hitting four in the first leg in Switzerland. With one trophy in the bag, the league in the lap, and qualification to the next round almost secured, they look well on course for a treble – should they manage to topple the big European guns in the process. The real question is, can they? Well, given the form of the players and the pedigree of the manager, they absolutely can.

 

This brings us to the horror show that is Arsenal these days … or these years? Surely, memory fails to come up a time as horrific for them as now. Not only did they lose to Manchester City in two successive games, they lost to Brighton over the weekend and are now sitting 13 points off fourth place which would guarantee a Champions League position. The frustration and anger of the supporters against Arsene Wenger is increasing and the empty seats at the Emirates Stadium against Manchester City was a writing on the wall for what is to come. Will this be the last season of Wenger as Arsenal manager? If yes then it will surely be a sad way to go for someone who has turned Arsenal around and made them into one of the biggest clubs of the world. But then who would he blame but himself? He was known for getting Arsenal into the Champions League but looks like they will be missing out on it this season as well.

 

PSG have a tough ask to turn the two-goal deficit around at home against Real Madrid with Ronaldo in red-hot form. But they have an away goal and all they need is to score twice without letting Madrid do the same. Sounds easy, right? Neymar is injured and that surely is a blow to PSG but we are definitely in for an enthralling encounter on Tuesday. Liverpool and Manchester City have one foot in the next round after inflicting heavy defeats to Porto and Basel respectively. Tottenham have the advantage against Juventus after their two-away-goal-turn-around in the first leg. But can they keep the likes of Higuain and Dybala quiet in the return leg? We will find out on Wednesday.