Lyon need to get Lacazette back to his best
If it’s foul and abusive language that you’re after, stick on a tape of players putting the ball out of play so that an obviously malingering opponent can receive treatment. That’s our cue to turn the air blue, every fackin’ time. So although that was not quite the situation when Sergi Darder limped off the pitch during Tuesday’s Lyon-Valencia match, we stood and applauded when Valencia’s Alvaro Negredo eschewed niceties and took a quick free-kick while Lyon were still trying to arrange to get a substitute on to the pitch. That started the move that culminated in Sofiane Feghouli cracking a superb shot into the net from the edge of the area for what turned out to be the winning goal. Lyon’s president, Jean-Michel Aulas, afterwards bemoaned “an obvious lack of fair play”, though the home team’s manager, Hubert Fournier, admitted that Negredo had been admirably quick-thinking and his own young team naïve.
Conceding a decisive goal when at a numerical disadvantage rather accentuated Lyon’s failings in the first match, when they were unable to find a winner against nine-man Gent. Now they are bottom of Group H with one point from two matches and more than likely need to beat Zenit St Petersburg at least once if they are to progress from the group stages. If they are to achieve that – and also if they are to hoist themselves up the Ligue 1 table and qualify for the competition again next season, their first full one in their sumptuous new stadium – they need to solve their scoring problems. That involves getting Alexandre Lacazette back to his best.
It was hailed as a triumph when Lyon convinced Lacazette to sign a contract extension in the summer despite interest from other clubs but the relationship between player and club has cooled since then. He has scored just once so far this season – from a penalty – and was hauled off early on Tuesday after a couple of bad misses (though others were also guilty, and Valencia’s goalkeeper, Jaume Domenech, performed brilliantly). He appears to be still bothered by back trouble and admits he has been narked by negative comments made both by Aulas and Fournier. Most of all, though, he is suffering from a deterioration in service caused mainly by Lyon’s unfortunate casualty list. The knee ligament damage to Nabil Fékir, last season’s chief conspirator with Lacazette, has been a particularly cruel loss, and the absence of Clément Grenier has also been felt. Lacazette has yet to strike up similar understandings with the recently-arrived Mathieu Valbuena or Claudio Beauvue, nor the 19-year-old Aldo Kalulu. Survival in Group H then depends on those matches against Zenit, who are a team apt to punish rawness. PD
Brahimi catches the eye again for Porto
Although making a mug out of Branislav Ivanovic is not quite the achievement it once was, the Chelsea right-back’s deterioration this year should not detract from another mesmeric performance from Porto’s slinky winger, Yacine Brahimi, who caught the eye with some audacious displays during his side’s run to the quarter-finals last season. Brahimi gave Ivanovic a torrid time with his mazy dribbling on the left wing during Porto’s 2-1 win over Chelsea, creating the opening goal when his jinking run created space for the shot which was palmed into the path of André André by Asmir Begovic. Ivanovic, his blood twisted into thousands of tiny little knots, was made to look like an amateur. He will not want to face the 25-year-old Algerian again in a hurry and if Brahimi continues his progression, it will surely not be long before Europe’s financial heavyweights begin waving wads of cash under Porto’s nose. JS
Suárez steps in to Messi’s shoes
While it would be wrong to call Barcelona a one-man team, indeed an insult to the likes of Neymar, Luis Suárez and Andrés Iniesta, there are times when Lionel Messi makes you think that he would not only hold his own if it was just him against 11 opponents, but that they would have a hard time getting the ball off him. He can win a match in the time it takes most of us to get halfway through blinking and so it was natural that his absence with a knee injury unsettled Barcelona and made Bayer Leverkusen believe that they could cause a shock at Camp Nou. Barcelona were vulnerable for long periods against the Germans, falling behind when they failed to defend a corner properly in the first half, and the champions would probably be stuck on one point after two matches if Javier Hernández had not fluffed a chance to double Leverkusen’s lead in the second half. Yet Hernández somehow lifted his effort high over the bar from close range, a miss the Mexican was made to regret when Sergi Roberto equalised, before Suárez suggested that he can play the role of Barcelona’s talisman until Messi returns by sweeping in an emphatic late winner. Barcelona are going to have to survive without Messi for around eight weeks and here was a timely reminder that Suárez, never one to shy away from a challenge, can be a winning machine as well. JS
Further reading
- Match report: Borussia Mönchengladbach 1-2 Manchester City
- Pellegrini hails Agüero’s nerve after Manchester City win
- Match report: Manchester United 2-1 Wolfsburg
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Paul Wilson: Schweinsteiger’s competitive spirit fires up his side
- Van Gaal: we must improve to win Champions League
- Match report: Arsenal 2-3 Olympiacos
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Barney Ronay: Arsenal suffer on another bleak night
- Amy Lawrence: experience means nothing as same old naivety continues
- Match report: Porto 1-2 Chelsea
- Mourinho blames ‘ridiculous mistakes’ for Chelsea’s defeat at Porto
- Arsenal and Chelsea: why they imploded in the Champions League
Winners and losers
Winners … Bate Borisov
One of the Champions League’s effects is to help sustain the domestic tyranny of clubs that remain underdogs in Europe. But Bate Borisov are not The New Saints and they regularly make it into the group stages of Europe’s elite tournament and occasionally upset more prestigious opponents, like in 2012 when beat Bayern Munich and Lille. To date, however, the knockout stages have proved a frontier too far and it certainly did not look like being reached this season when the Belarussians were tonked 4-1 by Bayer Leverkusen in their first group match this season. On Tuesday, however, they gave themselves renewed hope thanks to a rousing 3-2 win over Roma. The challenge now is to build on that, which they failed to do last season when they recorded a memorable home win over Atlethic Bilbao before finishing bottom of the group by losing 7-0 and 5-0 to Shakhtar Donetsk and 6-0 and 3-0 to Porto. Next up for them this season is two games against Barcelona. Gulp! PD
Losers … Wojciech Szszesny
Sometimes a move to a new club and country proves to be just what a player needed to refocus and revive his career. Sometimes a player just proves to be incorrigible. The evidence so far does not look good for Szczesny, who had a chance to draw a favourable comparison between himself and the goalkeepers that Arsène Wenger decided to rank above him at Arsenal. Reintroduced to the Roma start line-up after dislocating a finger in the first group match, the on-loan Pole performed ridiculously against Bate Borisov. He was found wanting for all three of the home side’s goals, most glaringly when he embarked on an ill-timed ramble around his box and was beaten from 40 yards by Igor Stasevic. Roma got a creditable draw with Barcelona in the first match but this result rather undid that. PD
Stat time
500 - Cristiano Ronaldo has scored his 500th goal in his professional career (club and country). Proclaimer.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 30, 2015
Maxime Lestienne is the 7th player from Belgium to score a #UCL brace. No Belgian has ever scored a Champions League hat-trick.
— Infostrada Sports (@InfostradaLive) September 30, 2015
5 - Prior to Alvaro Morata, the only Juventus player able to score in five consecutive UCL appearances was Alessandro Del Piero. Graduation.
— OptaPaolo (@OptaPaolo) September 30, 2015
Most #UCL appearances: 152 - @CasillasWorld 151 - Xavi 142 - Raúl 141 - Ryan Giggs 125 - Clarence Seedorf 124 - Paul Scholes
— Infostrada Sports (@InfostradaLive) September 29, 2015
15 - Sergio Agüero has scored 15 goals in his last 15 starts with Manchester City in the Champions League. Saviour.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 30, 2015
After 47 goals by foreign players, Gonçalo Guedes is the 1st Portuguese since Nélson Oliveira in 2012 to score for Benfica in Europe.
— Infostrada Sports (@InfostradaLive) September 30, 2015
8 - @lewy_official's last 8 days: 225 competitive minutes 10 goals 21 shots 14 shots on target 0 goals conceded Phenomenon. @FCBayernEN
— OptaFranz (@OptaFranz) September 30, 2015
For the first time there were 5 OWN GOALS on a single CL day. Srna, Balta, Eric, Carole & Bodtker Christensen.
— Infostrada Sports (@InfostradaLive) September 30, 2015
Best images
And finally …
Can anyone come up with a good reason that explains why goalline technology is not used in the Champions League? It would have been easy for the official behind the goal to miss that David Ospina had patted Kostas Fortounis’s corner over the line during Arsenal’s defeat to Olympiakos and there would have been a major furore if Nicolás Otamendi had not blasted in Manchester City’s equaliser against Borussia Mönchegladbach moments after the officials had failed to spot that Martín Demichelis’s effort was well over the line before it was cleared. Uefa must introduce it as soon as possible. The current state of affairs makes no sense at all. JS
