play1:08Why injuries won’t be a problem for Liverpool vs. ChelseaCraig Burley explains why Liverpool’s recent injuries shouldn’t affect their performance against Chelsea at the weekend in the Premier League.
play1:46Burley: Real Madrid need to match Mbappé’s standardCraig Burley reacts to Real Madrid’s 5-0 win over Kairat Almaty in the Champions League to bounce back from their Madrid derby defeat.
play1:05Alonso: This could be a spectacular season for MbappeReal Madrid boss Xabi Alonso says the team have to work hard to help Kylian Mbappe’s “qualities flourish” this season.
play1:11Burley reflects on Atlético Madrid’s ‘brilliant’ weekCraig Burley reacts to Atlético Madrid’s 5-1 win vs. Frankfurt in the Champions League following their 5-2 Madrid derby victory.
play1:32Moreno: Barcelona need to learn lessons from last seasonAle Moreno explains what went wrong for Barcelona in their 2-1 defeat to PSG in the Champions League.
play1:20Leboeuf praises PSG’s ‘statement’ UCL win vs. BarcelonaFrank Leboeuf reacts to PSG’s 2-1 victory over Barcelona in a bid to retain their Champions League crown and praises Nuno Mendes’ performance.
What’s wrong with Liverpool? Another bad defeat, tons of mistakes … is this is a quick-fix situation, or do they need so much more?
Where would Madrid’s work in progress be without Kylian Mbappé and his goal record? Is he helping to mask the issues Xabi Alonso needs to address?
Should Julián Álvarez be in the conversation of elite CFs? He was No. 7 in the FC 100 this summer, but has he shown he’s better after dominating Eintracht Frankfurt?
Nicol: Liverpool’s players are ‘making it difficult’ for Slot (1:12)Steve Nicol believes Arne Slot can only rely on three players following Liverpool’s 1-0 defeat to Galatasaray in the Champions League. (1:12)
Why injuries won’t be a problem for Liverpool vs. ChelseaCraig Burley explains why Liverpool’s recent injuries shouldn’t affect their performance against Chelsea at the weekend in the Premier League.
Craig Burley explains why Liverpool’s recent injuries shouldn’t affect their performance against Chelsea at the weekend in the Premier League.
Burley: Real Madrid need to match Mbappé’s standardCraig Burley reacts to Real Madrid’s 5-0 win over Kairat Almaty in the Champions League to bounce back from their Madrid derby defeat.
Craig Burley reacts to Real Madrid’s 5-0 win over Kairat Almaty in the Champions League to bounce back from their Madrid derby defeat.
Alonso: This could be a spectacular season for MbappeReal Madrid boss Xabi Alonso says the team have to work hard to help Kylian Mbappe’s “qualities flourish” this season.
Real Madrid boss Xabi Alonso says the team have to work hard to help Kylian Mbappe’s “qualities flourish” this season.
Burley reflects on Atlético Madrid’s ‘brilliant’ weekCraig Burley reacts to Atlético Madrid’s 5-1 win vs. Frankfurt in the Champions League following their 5-2 Madrid derby victory.
Craig Burley reacts to Atlético Madrid’s 5-1 win vs. Frankfurt in the Champions League following their 5-2 Madrid derby victory.
Moreno: Barcelona need to learn lessons from last seasonAle Moreno explains what went wrong for Barcelona in their 2-1 defeat to PSG in the Champions League.
Ale Moreno explains what went wrong for Barcelona in their 2-1 defeat to PSG in the Champions League.
Leboeuf praises PSG’s ‘statement’ UCL win vs. BarcelonaFrank Leboeuf reacts to PSG’s 2-1 victory over Barcelona in a bid to retain their Champions League crown and praises Nuno Mendes’ performance.
Frank Leboeuf reacts to PSG’s 2-1 victory over Barcelona in a bid to retain their Champions League crown and praises Nuno Mendes’ performance.
The second matchday of the 2025-26 UEFA Champions League league phase is in the books and, while the table is only starting to take shape, there are plenty of talking points beginning to crop up.
Defending champions Paris Saint-Germain won away at Barcelona, while Arsenal and Real Madrid ensured that their campaigns have begun with maximum points.
Liverpool, however, slumped to a 1-0 defeat against Galatasaray, while Julián Álvarez and Rasmus Højlund were amongst the goals in wins for Atlético Madrid and Napoli.
Read on as ESPN experts Mark Ogden, Julien Laurens, Sam Tighe and Gab Marcotti offer their thoughts on Matchday 2.
Marcotti: Let’s not kid ourselves, because we knew the bump in the road was coming. Sure, they won six in a row — seven if you count the Carabao Cup, which you really shouldn’t — but the writing was on the wall and when you need late goals to win time and time again, something’s wrong. Performances matter, and they simply haven’t been there.
There’s no quick fix here for Liverpool, but time should help. Among the key holdovers from the title-winning squad, Alexis Mac Allister and Mohamed Salah have been several notches below last season’s level. They’ll get better, you imagine. Alexander Isak, too, should improve in time: his difficulties are understandable given the summer he had.
I think they just tried to do too much over the summer in adding five starter calibre players to a team that won the title. That will take time — especially when the new full backs, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez, are so different from the guys they replaced. It explains why Arne Slot has screwed around with Dominik Szoboszlai at right back: Liverpool aren’t ready yet to carry two full backs with those attacking skill sets.
There’s also, in my view, a massive misconception around Florian Wirtz. It’s a big enough jump going from Bayer Leverkusen with their 25,000-fans-per-game average attendance to the spotlight at Liverpool. To compound this by having him play in the No. 10 hole — something he didn’t really do much at all at Leverkusen, certainly not with two wingers and a striker in front of him — and effectively learn a new position on the fly hasn’t helped.
Will it get better? In the long run I imagine so, because Slot is a good coach and these are good players. But he has to find the balance and, in my view, it won’t be with Wirtz in that position. He may need to start out wide or possibly as a Roberto Firmino-type center forward. (But, then … where does Isak go? Left side? Maybe: let Slot decide). That said, it could also get worse pretty quickly because the biggest summer screw-up was the failure to bring in an additional central defender.
Why injuries won’t be a problem for Liverpool vs. Chelsea
Tighe: Liverpool have won a lot of games so far this season, but they’ve won them late, in somewhat desperate fashion, and that’s often a sign that you’re winning simply because you have better players. It’s not necessarily sustainable. Now that the losses have begun, people look at their displays through an entirely different filter — “Champions’ mentality” or “bailout wins” — while the individual struggles of players like Konaté, Kerkez and even Salah become far, far more alarming.
Julien Laurens: Slot has lost me in the last two matches. Last season, Liverpool only lost back-to-back games once, and that didn’t happen until March. Now we are still only in September, they were well beaten by Crystal Palace and Galatasaray, and Slot’s starting XIs have made no sense. Whether seeing Wirtz as a false nine with Isak on his left at Selhurst Park, or Frimpong as a right winger with Szoboszlai at right back and Salah on the bench in Turkey, it was incomprehensible.
In both games, the Reds made mistakes, were exposed, unbalanced and inefficient in attack. Salah’s cameo off the bench was terrible (no shots in 30 minutes while chasing the game), and don’t get me started on Isak’s and Wirtz’s performances on Tuesday. Slot has a lot of work to integrate his new players (£500 million worth of them), find the right formula and get the team back on track.
Salah is being wasted at the moment, playing too far from the opposition’s box. Wirtz looks lost. Liverpool used to have strong build-up play with a flat back four and Trent Alexander-Arnold at the heart of it. Now that he’s not there and neither Frimpong nor Conor Bradley can seemingly do what he used to with the ball, the English champions are all over the place, and teams are exploiting it.
Ogden: Liverpool have been way too open all season. The clues were there in the Community Shield defeat against Crystal Palace; the crazy opening Premier League game against Bournemouth; when they lost a two-goal lead against 10-man Newcastle United (before scoring a winner in the 97th minute); well, the list goes on.
The other key issue is the players Liverpool have lost. The focus has been on under-performing new signings, but Alexander-Arnold has left a huge hole, Luis Díaz (now at Bayern Munich) made a big difference, and the tragic death of Diogo Jota has left Liverpool without a forward who always seemed to deliver when a goal was needed.
Maybe Slot won the title last season because of one last flourish from Jurgen Klopp’s team, and the transition has now well and truly started.
Marcotti: I’m not sure Mbappé’s scoring prowess actually papers over the team’s wider issues. It wasn’t the case last season, for one, and he scored 40+ goals. Sure, Real Madrid will beat most opponents just because they have an absurdly good keeper and attacking players who can create out of nothing. But I don’t think running up the score in Almaty, against an 18-year-old goalkeeper making only his second first-team start, is what we need to tell us Mbappé is good.
Overall, Xabi Alonso’s issues remain. He’s a system coach who has taken over a side that, throughout the Zinedine Zidane/Carlo Ancelotti era, was very successful by having the players — and not the set-up — come first. And he has to work with that.
Maybe Güler is the answer … but then, where does Jude Bellingham go? Maybe Xabi’s patterns of play and sophisticated tactics will lessen the need for a creative playmaker … but that will take time. In either case, we’re not there yet.
Burley: Real Madrid need to match Mbappé’s standard
He had never started a season in his career so well, scoring 14 goals in nine appearances for his club in all competitions. Mbappé has even scored in six consecutive games in all competitions for the Merengues — eight straight games if you count the two World Cup qualifiers he played for France in September.