Haaland's nightmare game, Napoli back in Serie A race, more

The international break has finished and this weekend brought us plenty to talk about as European club action returned with a bang! Manchester City advanced in the FA Cup despite a game to forget by Erling Haaland, and Napoli took a decisive step back into Serie A's title race while simultaneously wrecking Milan's aspirations of securing a spot in next season's UEFA Champions League.

Elsewhere, we had talking points galore around RB Leipzig (goodbye, Marco Rose), Barcelona (and the ageless scoring form of Robert Lewandowski), Paris Saint-Germain (who can clinch Ligue 1 in the next week) and Aston Villa, which are getting great returns from a pair of on-loan legends. Here are some musings and reactions to the most memorable moments of the weekend.

Injured and wasteful, Erling Haaland has a nightmare game, but Manchester City have their game faces on in FA Cup win over Bournemouth

I don't buy the narrative that Guardiola's decision to reshuffle his back line at halftime by sending on an attacking midfielder like Nico O'Reilly at left back somehow turned the game. Yes, you feel a little better about things defensively if Josko Gvardiol is in the middle instead of Abdukodir Khusanov (I'm sure there's more to come) and, of course, O'Reilly delivered the two assists that allowed City to come back from a goal down to win 2-1 and book their spot in the FA Cup semifinal.

The fact is that Erling Haaland alone could (should?) have notched three goals in the first half. And it was City as a whole who raised their game after the break, limiting Bournemouth -- who lest we forget, are just four points behind them in the table and beat them comprehensively back in November -- to a grand total of zero shots of any kind in the second half.

In fact, there was something of the City of old (i.e., last year and the one before) for much of the game as Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne, Mateo Kovacic and Ilkay Gündogan dominated the ball, playing keep-away and creating space. Bournemouth paid the price for missing half their starting back four -- Dean Huijsen and Milos Kerkez were both suspended -- but make no mistake: It was City who made them look really bad.

All of which brings us to Haaland. He took a bad penalty, made a bad decision when one-on-one with Kepa Arrizabalaga, and had a bad header. Oh, and he picked up an ankle injury to boot, though he has yet to be assessed.

Might it be a blessing to have Omar Marmoush, who scored the winner, up front for a while? I don't think so. You should worry more when Haaland doesn't get on the end of chances, not when he misses them.

Napoli not pretty, but still in the title hunt, while Milan's defeat may well mean no Champions League

The headline takeaway is that Napoli beat Milan 2-1 to stay three points behind Inter and keep their title hopes alive. And make no mistake about it: they are very much alive.

Other than next week's visit to Bologna, which are flying high in fourth place, the rest of their schedule sees them play sides in the bottom half of the table. Contrast this with Inter who, in addition to their European (home-and-away against Bayern in the Champions League quarterfinal, possibly more to come) and Coppa Italia commitment (the derby against Milan and maybe a final), have to navigate games against three of the top eight.

Antonio Conte's team enjoyed the benefit of two early goals -- both in transition, both taking advantage of some poor defending -- to take a 2-0 lead at home. From there, they had two options: play it safe and try to hit again on the counter, or put Milan under pressure and try to add the lead.

No prizes for guessing what Conte chose.

Napoli managed just three shots on goal in the final 71 minutes plus injury time, which rather says it all. They kept the ball (they had the bulk of the possession), made Milan chase them and tried to see out the game.

As a strategy, it worked in the sense that it yielded the desired result -- Napoli are now just three points back from the top with eight games remaining -- though I'm not sure it was the right approach. Milan ended up putting tougher a 2.19 expected goals in the second half alone and ended up missing a (generous, to say the least) penalty with Santi Gimenez. That tells you Napoli came very close to dropping points and when you're at home against this version of Milan, that ought to be a concern.

Conte cited the absence of Scott McTominay and the fact that David Neres was returning after nearly two months out. Sure, but it's reasonable to expect more. One mistake -- or better finishing from Gimenez -- would have left them five points back.

As for Milan, you hate to throw manager Sérgio Conceição under the bus again (not really...) but sometimes he leaves you little choice, because his empty machismo borders on the absurd. Pregame he was asked if he felt he had the club's support and said, "I'm not a little boy, I don't need my daddy's approval." During the game, he got himself needlessly booked for ranting about Napoli's time-wasting: they're winning and the clock is ticking down. What do you expect them to do?

But those are minor points. More important is the fact that Champions League football is Milan's priority at this stage and yet it felt as if his starting XI, with Rafael Leão and Santi Gimenez on the bench, was put together with a view towards Wednesday's Coppa Italian derby with Inter. It's true that Gimenez played with Mexico in Los Angeles during the break, but he was back on Monday. How much recovery does he actually need?

Picking João Félix -- 20 touches, one pass into the final third during 55 minutes on the pitch -- ahead of Leao also seemed absurd. Almost as absurd as his explanation, which stated that Leao had picked up a muscular quibble and "would not have started anyway." (Yeah, Sergio: that doesn't really help your case.)

Unless, of course, you're putting all your eggs in the Coppa Italia basket, because you know you're getting fired at the end of the season and if you beat Inter you can actually win it, and then you can tell your next employer that you were there for only six months but won both the Super Cup and the Coppa Italia. Of course, thinking that would be cynical and mean.

It's not surprising that RB Leipzig fired Marco Rose, but it is surprising it took this long. Does Jurgen Klopp get involved?

RB Leipzig, and the Red Bull group in general, aren't going to win many popularity contests in Germany, so this season was met with a bunch of schadenfreude by many (including me). Some of it, perhaps, was envy because since getting involved in the game 15 years ago, they have gotten many more things right than wrong in terms of scouting. To this day, they're arguably the only people to have gotten multiclub ownership right, so credit where credit is due.

But that's what makes this campaign so astounding, much like the fact that they waited until after Sunday's 1-0 defeat away to Borussia Monchengladbach before sacking manager Marco Rose.