It's early April, and the fun keeps coming in European soccer as we follow all the title races and Champions League chases to their conclusion. The big game of the weekend saw Man United damage Liverpool's title hopes with a gritty home draw over their high-flying rivals. In Germany's Bundesliga, Bayern Munich's latest stumble means Bayer Leverkusen (who are unbeaten in 41 games across all competitions this season) can clinch their first league title next weekend even before they play. Not a bad spot for Xabi Alonso & Co. to be in, right?
Elsewhere, there were talking points for Arsenal (who continue to get the best out of Kai Havertz up front), Roma (who are getting the most out of club legend Daniele De Rossi), Athletic Club (who recorded a historic Copa del Rey win) and Tottenham, whose push for a top-four finish continues at pace.
It's Monday. Gab Marcotti reacts to the biggest moments in the world of football.
Man United show grit as Liverpool pay for their mistakes
Jurgen Klopp will be happy that his Liverpool team won't be seeing Erik Ten Hag and Manchester United again this season. Forget the 4-3 FA Cup quarterfinal defeat, and that late Amad Diallo goal, in what was a competitive game. But the two league meetings between the clubs -- a 0-0 draw back in December, and Sunday's 2-2 draw -- produced just two points for Liverpool. This despite Klopp's team having a whopping cumulative edge in terms of Expected Goals (6.33 to 1.61), shots on goal (62 to 16) and shots on target (16 to 7).
Sunday could have easily seen them three or four goals up by half-time and yet, this is a sport that often punishes mistakes. This applies both to the wayward finishing -- Klopp said later that his players were "rushing things" -- as well as errors like Jarell Quansah's errand pass that led to Bruno Fernandes' equaliser early in the second half, which very much brought the Old Trafford crowd back to life.
Quansah's mistake was a brain cramp of the sort that is so extreme, it's not worth pointing it out to the player -- he knows what he did wrong. Later in the second half, the lax defending that led to Kobbie Mainoo's goal infuriated Klopp on the sidelines because that was a collective shortcoming. That said, both cases took truly special finishes to be converted into goals, and that's a testament to the quality that Bruno and Mainoo bring: against lesser individuals, Liverpool may well have gotten away with it.
Once the fog lifts, this may prompt Klopp into seeing his glass as a little more half-full. Yes, the stupid mistakes should have been avoided -- but then, lest we forget, Mohamed Salah's equalizer from the spot was also a gift from the opposition after Aaron Wan-Bissaka's reckless challenge on Harvey Elliott -- but they still left the opponent with a lot to do. And while the bad finishing is infuriating, there's plenty of data that suggests you should be concerned more when you don't create chances than when you don't finish them.
More of a concern, perhaps, is how the intensity dropped in the second half. Was it by a design, an attempt to conserve energy and manage the lead with so many fixtures coming up? Or was there just a collective switch off, especially in midfield, maybe because they can't sustain a certain pace for 90 minutes? Only Klopp will know the answer to that.
One is that Bruno Fernandes can still carry this team in its dark moments and that the trio of Mainoo, Rasmus Holland and Alejandro Garnacho bodes well for the future. The other is you can't accuse this group of players of not being resilient and fighting on until the end, whether out of loyalty to Ten Hag, professional pride or love for the shirt. They often get outplayed for many reasons -- sometimes they're not good, sometimes the opponent is better, sometimes Ten Hag sets them up incorrectly -- but it's very rarely because they give up.
That said, I get that managers -- especially ones whose future is in doubt -- are taught to be positive, but Ten Hag takes it to an extreme. Reflecting on how his team threw away leads against Brentford (it finished 1-1) and Chelsea (3-4) in injury time, and Liverpool 10 minutes from the end, he said "On one side, I am disappointed that we have dropped seven points in one week after being in winning positions, but we have to blame ourselves for making stupid mistakes ... on the other side I am very proud ... you see how we are improving and the potential of this squad is amazing."
I get the disappointment for the dropped points, but how about a reality check?
The potential of some players (as mentioned above) is legitimately "amazing." The squad as a whole? Meh.
And as for how "we can see" how they are "improving?" Well let's consider those three games, shall we? They could have been 3-0 down at halftime on Sunday, they were hardly anything to write home about against a mediocre Chelsea (even before the injury-time madness), and against Brentford, who are 16th in the table, they conceded 31 shots and 3.05 xG while getting comprehensively battered for much of the game.
Ten Hag should just talk about the mitigating circumstances (starting with injuries) and individual errors that cost you points, and how excited you are about Garnacho, Mainoo and Hojlund. There's no need to play "make-believe" by talking about an improvement only you seem to be aware of.
Bayern collapse at Heidenheim, and now talk turns to simply qualifying for Champions League
Yeah, it seems absurd to me too, but that's what Max Eberl, Bayern's sporting director, said: "We can't be arrogant and say 'Oh well, then we'll just finish second,' because as of right now we haven't finished second, in fact, we haven't even qualified for the Champions League [next year]."
It's a bit dramatic -- with six games to go, they are seven points clear of fifth place and, in fact, fifth might get them into the Champions league anyway -- but you get the point: the situation is serious and the club can't afford to be complacent. (A cynic might say that Eberl has the luxury of talking like this since he only took over last month, which means he wasn't responsible for many of the poor decisions, including turning Thomas Tuchel into a lame duck.)
Sure, maybe Bayern were somewhat distracted by their Champions League clash with Arsenal on Tuesday, but the fact is they went into half-time leading 2-0 against a Heidenheim team that had won just once since Christmas. You can blame the Min-Jae Kim/Dayot Upamecano centre-back partnership, of course, but when you give up two goals in two minutes, the malaise runs deeper. Harry Kane scored and could have scored more -- if he had, it would have papered over some cracks, but the cracks are very evidently still there.
Tuchel also picked up a yellow card on the sideline, which means he is suspended for Bayern's next outing. You can insert your own joke here about whether we'll see him in the Bundesliga again, too. (By the time the next game rolls around, they might be out of the Champions League as well.)
If you're a Bayern fan, all you can hope for is that rather than just pinning everything on Tuchel, the players find the pride necessary to see out this domestic campaign with dignity.
Earlier this year, when asked for a list of worse value signings in the window, I felt no choice but to put him on the list. Not because he doesn't have all the tools to be outstanding, but because Arsenal had paid a club-record fee for him and he simply wasn't producing (or even playing that much). He was dropped for five of Arsenal's first 16 Premier League or Champions League games, notching just one goal -- and that was from the penalty spot -- in that time frame. When you're 24, just entering the prime of your career and your new club breaks the bank for you, only to sit you every third game, and then you don't produce whenever you do play ... well ... what else are you going to call it?
Man United show grit as Liverpool pay for their mistakes
Bayern collapse at Heidenheim, and now talk turns to simply qualifying for Champions League
Arsenal's turnaround is also Havertz's turnaround