Champions League round-up + quarter-final dates/times set

Morning all.

In a season of high stress and no little anxiety, maybe yesterday and today were/are a chance to stop and breathe a bit. I watched some of the Champions League action yesterday, and after doing well in the first leg, Newcastle got absolutely slaughtered by Barcelona who won 7-2 on the night. I don’t feel sorry for them, but I did feel a bit bad for our old mate Aaron Ramsdale who was between the sticks last night.

Barcelona were good, but Newcastle were also very bad defensively, as the scoreline suggests. There was one moment, perhaps for the 5th goal, when Malick Thiaw produced a piece of ‘defending’ so passive and indifferent to the danger of Robert Lewandowski of all people, that it gave me flashbacks to some of our worst days. There’s a touch of ‘Scottish play’ vibes going here, because I don’t want to speak the M word out loud ahead of a League Cup final against Man City.

You couldn’t but be impressed with the technical level of Barcelona, and the way they continue to produce players from La Masia who seamlessly make their way into the first team. Everyone looks at Lamine Yamal, for obvious reasons, and Pedri is a known quantity at this stage, but 18 year old Marc Bernal alongside him in midfield looks a hell of a talent at such a young age. It’s like they have a way of maturing players more quickly.

As for Newcastle, out of Europe in embarrassing fashion, Eddie Howe now up there with Gary Neville as an English manager who has seen his team hit for 7 by Barcelona, you’d imagine there’ll be a shake-up there in the summer. We’ve been linked with Sandro Tonali, a good player but one whose off the ball work might need some work to properly convince Mikel Arteta based on what we saw last night. Apparently he was unwell beforehand which might explain some of it though. I suspect strongly though, that Howe and his sidekick who looks like he should be in a Louis Theroux documentary, will be seeking gainful employment elsewhere come the end of this campaign.

Later on, I watched some of the Sp*rs game as they played Atletico Madrid at home. I guess it’s the most Tottenham thing of all time that they actually won for the first time in 9 games, but also still lost. The gift that keeps on losing, I guess. My main takeaway from this, however, was that I would happily see Arsenal give Atleti some money for Julian Alvarez if we’re looking to bolster the squad from an attacking perspective this summer. I don’t want to even start with transfer speculation at this point, we still have so much to play for and that should be the obvious priority, but in the background if a small Italian man who likes expensive ties and belts isn’t making a list of potential additions with this bloke’s name on it (and underlined), he’s probably not doing his job well enough.

I didn’t watch any Liverpool, but they go through after demolishing Galatasaray 4-0, and Bayern Munich’s 4-1 victory over Atalanta gave them a 10-2 aggregate win (I’m getting flashbacks and I don’t care for it one bit!). So, interesting quarter-finals, the dates/times have been confirmed by UEFA, and are as follows:

FIRST LEGS

7th April
Sporting CP vs Arsenal
Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich

8th April
Barcelona vs Atletico de Madrid
Paris vs Liverpool

SECOND LEGS

14th April
Atletico Madrid vs Barcelona
Liverpool vs Paris

15th April
Arsenal vs Sporting CP
Bayern Munich vs Real Madrid

Should we overcome the challenge of Sporting, we’d face a Spanish semi-final from the winners of the Barcelona/Atletico Madrid tie. I’d probably have Barca as favourites for that, but you can never rule out a Diego Simeone side, particularly one that will be keen to make up for the sheer embarrassment of losing a game to the worst Sp*rs side in recent history. I don’t know what the modern equivalent of punishment training is these days, there are no terraces for Simeone to make his players run up and down relentlessly to burn away their shame, but I’m sure he’ll find a way.

So, I think I’ll leave it there for this morning. Tomorrow, Mikel Arteta will hold his pre-Carabao Cup final press conference, and we can start to focus on that and the task at hand at Wembley on Sunday. For now, if it’s at all possible for you, have a stress free day, and I’ll be back here tomorrow with more.

Until then.

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