Another European soccer weekend is in the books, and there is a lot to talk about. We'll begin with Sunday's tempestuous derby at Old Trafford: Manchester City beat Manchester United 1-0 thanks to a goal that shouldn't have stood, with a red card for Phil Foden (that was right) and no censure for Bruno Fernandes (which was wrong) in a game that'll forever be remembered for VAR errors than anything else.
Real Madrid picked up a huge home win over Rayo Vallecano, but Jose Mourinho's side was still booed for second-half sloppiness by a fanbase that demands maximum effort at all times. The same happened to Chelsea, as Xabi Alonso's side were bullied at home by newly promoted Hull City and were lucky to get a draw.
Elsewhere, we got talking points galore for Tottenham (who are still scoreless in the Premier League), Paris Saint-Germain (who finally got a win in Ligue 1), Barcelona (who keep winning big despite not having a world-class center forward), Arsenal (who stayed perfect with victory at Sunderland), Bayern Munich (who ruined the Elversberg fairytale) and much, much more.
It's Monday morning, so what better time for some musings? Let's get into it.
- Manchester derby reaction: Short-handed City outplay Man United
- Premier League VAR review: Wrongly awarded goal costs United
- Hamilton: Hull show why Chelsea fans are in for a rough ride this season
Referee admission is scant consolation for Man United, but still hugely important for the game after Derby defeat
This incident pretty much overshadowed the game itself, because it's not something we see very often at all, so let's start with that.
Just before the hour mark, with the game deadlocked at 0-0 and City playing with 10 men since the 23rd minute -- when Phil Foden was sent off for kicking Bruno Fernandes -- Josko Gvardiol's sent in a cross that was slightly deflected by Patrick Dorgu into the path of Erling Haaland, who buried the chance. Your first instinct, watching on TV, was that Haaland was clearly offside. Apparently not, according to the Premier League's semi-automated offside technology. Fair enough -- I'll trust the big-brained machine with the optical cameras measuring 29 data points per player 50 times a second.
But once it was determined that Haaland was marginally onside, the issue became Enzo Fernández, who obviously wasn't.
- Ogden: Derby mess shows VAR's quest for perfection is doomed to fail
The Argentine midfielder didn't actually touch the ball, but threw himself into its flight path and attempted a header. Lucky for City that he missed -- just -- because he was clearly offside before the ball was played in. The question though is whether he was interfering with an opponent -- or, as the offside law puts it, "clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts an opponent" -- which would have turned his passive offside into an active one.
Very obviously, he was. The fact that he moved toward the ball not only affected Senne Lammens' positioning -- had Fernandez not been there, the keeper might have had a better shot at stopping Haaland's finish -- but also Lisandro Martínez, who was initially covering Haaland, but left him unmarked when he saw Fernandez's movement. Procedurally, it's a subjective call, which is why VAR should have asked referee Michael Oliver to conduct an on-field review to see if he agreed with 99.9% of humanity.
Apparently, the notion that Fernandez was interfering from an offside position didn't occur to Video Assistant Referee Matt Donohue and Assistant video assistant referee Blake Antrobus. All they did was inform Oliver of the semi-automated offside technology's verdict, which determined that Haaland was onside and led to the overturning of the on-field decision that he was off. As mistakes go, this isn't an error judgement: it's an error in procedure, not far off a surgeon leaving a scalpel inside you after a surgery.
So, credit is due to Pro Ref -- the name of rebranded referees' association, previously known as the catchy PGMOL -- for issuing the statement admitting to the mistake within a few hours. People drop clangers -- it happens -- and while it won't change anything for United, two things matter here: accountability and education. Pro Ref nailed the first one, and now it's important that it gets the second one right too, reviewing the audio, educating itself on exactly what went wrong with Donohue and Antrobus, and using it to make the refereeing crews better.
However, I'd also call Oliver into question here as well. He's one of the top referees in the world: He was watching too and could see Fernandez. You would expect him (and fourth official Paul Tierney) to ask the guys in the VAR room: "Hey fellas, what's up with Enzo? You sure he wasn't interfering? Want me to take a look at it?" Maybe that's exactly what happened and if so, it makes the VAR guys look even worse.
The other big talking point here was Foden's early red card, and I thought it was the correct call. It doesn't really matter how much force he used in kicking out at Bruno Fernandes, or that he was reacting to being fouled and then kicked while on the ground. But Bruno shouldn't have gotten away with his little kick either. Foden was lying between him and the ball; Bruno is experienced and gifted enough to know early what he was doing. He should have been booked.
Sadly, all this talk of refereeing distracts us a bit from the game itself, which is a shame, because City playing 70-odd minutes a man down away from home in a derby and more than holding their own is significant. It shows character, intelligence and steel -- qualities that aren't really to be taken for granted when you consider that five of the players who started the second half have been at the club for less than a year, which means it's not really a case of them inheriting Pep Guardiola's stardust or being steeped in some kind of winning mentality.
As for United, you could parse this game down to incidents and tell yourself they deserved three points. There was Haaland's goal, of course, but also Marcus Rashford and Kobbie Mainoo hitting the woodwork and Bryan Mbeumo's late chance that Gianluigi Donnarumma brilliantly snuffed out. And sure, but for a few centimeters (and a bit of competence from VAR), United might have won this game 3-0. But that would have been fool's gold because in terms of performance, United remain far behind City.
Prior to Mbeumo's change in the fifth of injury time, United had recorded 0.39 xG, while playing 70-plus minutes with an extra man. At home. Rashford and Mainoo's chances were low-xG moments of individual quality, not the result of a coherent, productive approach. There's still a ton of work for manager Michael Carrick to do.
Up 3-1 at home and getting booed by your own fans? Welcome to the Bernabéu!
When I heard the whistles and jeers ringing out from my TV on Saturday, I thought back to something Carlo Ancelotti told me years ago about Real Madrid: "The Bernabéu is the only place in the world where you can be 5-0 up and your own fans will boo you."
OK, it wasn't quite 5-0. Real Madrid had gone 3-0 up in a dominant first half, but didn't begin the second stanza well. The home side had given the ball away cheaply, leading to Pedro Diaz hitting the post and Unai López coming close. Then, with six minutes gone, Vinícius Júnior was late to a pass, Rayo stole the ball and Sergio Camello put it through Ibrahima Konaté's legs to make it 3-1. But still, the whistles and jeers rang out.
You don't really hear that anywhere else. It's easy to talk about excellence and standards and a demanding fanbase, but plenty of other clubs also win plenty without getting abuse from their own fans if they make a mistake. Nope: Real Madrid are in their own little bubble when it comes to this.
The good news is that it's a bubble Jose Mourinho is very familiar with and, you presume, knows how to handle. The fact that the boos rang out again at the final whistle, after what turned out to be a 4-1 win, are eloquent too.
The deeper sense, I think, isn't that the Bernabéu has unrealistically perfectionist fans. Or, indeed, ungrateful ones. They know perfectly well that most years they have better players and often better managers than 95% of the opponents they face. It's not that winning is taken for granted as a result, but that craven mistakes or lack of effort aren't tolerated the way they are elsewhere. And, rightly or wrongly, a number of Madrid stars in the past few seasons have been accused of not giving their all for 90 minutes or being too cocky. That's what the fans don't want, and that's what they're punishing.
As for the game itself, the first half showed the real (as in authentic) Madrid. Yan Diomande getting the start ahead of Arda Güler meant less control, but more devastation in transition. Mourinho has the luxury to decide what he wants to prioritize game by game. This isn't really the sort of match in which you can fairly judge the midfield, but equally, it seems obvious that Madrid will get a lot better when Aurélien Tchouaméni is ready to become a full-time starter.
It's not just the defending or being 'soft' -- Hull outplayed Chelsea
You would expect Hull City to be more physical and possibly intense (blue-collar hunger and all that) than Chelsea. And if you watched the Tigers in the Premier League this season, you would expect them to be better at set pieces too. But on Saturday, they outplayed and outwitted Xabi Alonso's crew at Stamford Bridge and that has to be a concern.
It's not just that they took more shots and had a higher xG (1.38 to 0.91) -- it's the three big chances (as defined by Opta) that they missed, especially the ones that fell to Oli McBurnie and Mohamed-Ali Cho.
You're reluctant to point out Chelsea's flaws because you don't want to take anything away from Hull, but games such as these leave you little choice. Jorrel Hato letting the ball bounce in the box for the first goal, players being statues for the second one, the Lewie Coyle chance ... this was just really poor. And, in some ways, it was hard to explain, unless you believe that Levi Colwill and Wesley Fofana simply aren't competent defenders.
But there are nits to pick everywhere. That vaunted attack gave Chelsea the lead, but it becomes very predictable (and Cole Palmer's one-footedness becomes really evident) against a well-organized opponent. Alonso's changes also came late: apart from the Pep Chavarría for Hato mercy move at halftime, he waited until 20 minutes from the end to send on Valentín Barco and four minutes from the end to unleash Estêvão.
The biggest concern to me, however, is in midfield. Moisés Caicedo's absence weighs heavy, sure, but beyond that there's a stunning lack of creativity. Reece James ended up getting the ball deep and, for all he offers, perceptive passing and playmaking isn't in his skill set. The upshot was a whole load of sterile possession.
Alonso said his side was "soft" -- I'm not sure that's the issue, because you don't have to be a brute to pass and move -- and said it would take a few months to grow. You hope he misspoke as Chelsea don't have a few months. Not if they want to get back in the UEFA Champions League.
QUICK HITS
10. Barcelona show no signs of missing a center forward, at least not yet, anyway: It's a bit of a cliché, but sometimes it feels as if manager Hansi Flick thinks less of players by position and more by what they can do. Logic suggested they needed a center forward in the summer after the departures of Robert Lewandowski and Ferran Torres; they pursued Julián Álvarez early, but when they didn't get him, Barça said: "We're good." (No, Gabriel Jesus, doesn't count: he hasn't really played as a central striker in years.) They reckoned it made sense to bring in a specialist if he represented a serious upgrade (which Álvarez would have). If not, best to get somebody else to adapt or, in some games, chuck 18-year-old Hamza Abdelkarim into the mix instead.
It's obviously working so far: 26 goals in six games in all competitions tell their own story. On Sunday, they put four past Levante en route to 4-2 away win, which looks closer than it really was because of a couple major defensive errors late in the second half from youngsters Xavi Espart and Marc Bernal, who really should know better. (If it's any consolation, they weren't the only ones who appeared to doze in the final 15 minutes.) I don't see these mistakes as a concern: they're not structural, they're individual. The real test will come later on, but for now Barcelona are firing on all cylinders.
9. Arsenal stay perfect, and Arteta has a point (sort of): You would have thought Mikel Arteta would be pretty chill after Arsenal's 2-0 win away to Sunderland. Five wins in all competitions to start the season (including tough games against Napoli and Chelsea in the space of a week), Bruno Guimarães comes off the bench and scores a great goal ... why get bent out of shape?
The penalty awarded to Sunderland that Enzo Le Fée smacked off the post, that's why. "This is not acceptable at this level," Arteta said, fuming at the fact that the mutual grappling between Ezri Konsa and Dan Ballard resulted in his player giving away a penalty. "I'm sad that you even think to give a penalty in that situation or the way VAR has to intervene."
I get his point. Replays showed both players were wrestling in the box, their hands all over each other. Don't give a penalty: give them both yellow cards instead. Referees are cracking down on this business this season and if you're a hater, you might suggest Arteta is fretting over how it might impact Arsenal's vaunted set pieces.
There's a simple solution which I've argued for before: punish everything and tolerate nothing. If you have both hands on your opponent, it's a yellow. If he has both hands on you, it's a yellow for him too. Regardless of whether the ball is in play. We'll see less of what happened with Konsa and Ballard, and it will be a lot easier to figure out what is -- and what is not -- a penalty.
8. Big bad Bayern ruin the fairytale ... but that's their job: It's true that for the neutral, it would have been quite the story. Little newly promoted SV Elversberg beating mighty Bayern Munich to make it three wins from three to go top of the Bundesliga and turn the world on its axis. The thing is, outside of scripture, Goliath usually wins, and that's what happened on Saturday. Just don't let the 2-1 scoreline fool you: Bayern could and should have scored more than the two they managed, while Elversberg needed an absolute gem from Maurice Krattenmacher (a former Bayern kid, no less) to get on the score sheet.
Opponents who sit deep and low blocks are nothing for Bayern, and sometimes scoreline don't reflect dominance. That said, there are areas for improvement, particularly at the back, where Dayot Upamecano and Josip Stanisic had their wobbles. And at the other end, Luis Díaz could be a little more clinical. But, hey: in and out, spoil the party, three points, job done.
7. Atlético Madrid leave it late to record an important win at La Real: When you're coming off back-to-back defeats (to Athletic Club and Liverpool), you just want to bring home a point. And away to Pellegrino Matarazzo's Real Sociedad, we saw shades of the old Atleti: gritty, tough-minded and never-say-die. The late (84th minute) penalty that broke the ice was fortuitous (though correct), but the win was nevertheless deserved, especially when you consider that once again they were without both center forwards as well as Pablo Barrios.
And while the other two goals in the 3-0 win came in garbage time, when Real Sociedad were throwing the kitchen sink at them, they matter too. After his nightmare experience at Juventus, Jonathan David got his first goal off the bench. His profile is entirely different from Atleti's other striker options and, if given time and space, he could be a critical addition (and a hedge against any further Julián Álvarez nonsense). And Giuliano Simeone's lung-busting run for the third -- after 94 minutes of his usual, full-throttle intensity -- is the sort of thing that Atletismo is all about.
6. Nmecha papers over Borussia Dortmund's cracks in the most spectacular fashion: Felix Nmecha came on with 25 minutes to go and scored twice (the second a nifty overhead kick) to give Dortmund a 3-0 win over SC Paderborn 07, putting to bed a game that had become far hairier than it should have been after Fábio Silva's early goal.
Glass-half-empty types will point out how they were sterile and failed to control the game against their newly promoted opponents: between Silva's strike and the Serhou Guirassy chance early in the second half, more than 45 minutes of football elapsed in which they managed just three shots for an xG of 0.09. Maybe so, but BVB boss Nico Kovac gets a pass from me on this occasion. The "powerhouse" partnership of Guirassy and Silva needs service, and with his array of No. 10s out while Joey Veerman offered a humdrum performance, the hosts didn't see much of the ball. Tactically, Kovac is finding his way and that they've rattled off five straight wins to start to season in all competitions can only build confidence. Oh, and Nico Schlotterbeck's return from injury is huge.
5. Is Luka Modric really a problem for Ruben Amorim? Hey, don't yell at me! It's Amorim who brought up the issue, taking him off after AC Milan's horrendous first half against Lazio, which saw them two goals down at the break. "Modric is good when we have the ball and his teammates are comfortable with it, but when we keep losing it and it becomes about chasing back, it becomes impossible for him," Amorim said afterward, which was a bit odd given Milan's 60% first-half possession.
At 41, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Modric isn't going to fit Amorim's 3-4-2-1 system as one of the players in front of the back four. As great as he was last year, when Milan played at a snail's pace, logic would have dictated either letting him go or having him accept a diminished role, which is probably what will end up happening, assuming Milan don't run out of patience with Amorim and he keeps his job.
Why is that even in question? Because after the 0.09 xG they recorded away to Juventus last week came this first-half performance, marked by muddled ideas up the pitch and ham-fisted defending at the back. Milan were better after his halftime triple substitution -- including the first Christian Pulisic sighting of the season -- but the fact they escaped with a 2-2 draw had more to do with Gennaro Gattuso's Lazio collapsing deep and Diego Moreira's two hit-and-hopes than anything else.
4. Liverpool's rut continues ... does it matter that it's at home? I have a neighbor who is a Liverpool season-ticket holder. He loves to blame the media -- not entirely unreasonably -- for spinning intimidating narratives about playing at home ("Fortress Anfield" and all that). He reminded me on Sunday morning that Liverpool have won just one of their past five games at Anfield and that, in 2026, until they defeated Atleti in midweek, the best side they had beaten at home was Newcastle United, back in January.
The real damage in not performing at home is that it fuels negativity and makes improvement more difficult, in part because the disappointment of 50,000 home fans is far more palpable than a few thousand away fans (and millions more watching at home). And Liverpool's scoreless draw against Fulham (who came into it with zero points) on Saturday falls in that bucket. Andoni Iraola said they lacked "freshness" after the midweek Champions League game. Maybe so, but he'd better get used to it because there's plenty of midweek football head for his team.
I'd put the draw in a different bucket. Liverpool probably did just enough to win and paper over cracks, but right now there's no real value added yet from Iraola's system (the squad simply hasn't metabolized it yet) and not enough individual quality for talent to carry you through (Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and Bradley Barcola simply aren't living up to their combined fees of nearly half a billion euros).
3. Paris Saint-Germain finally get their first Ligue 1 win, and it's not pretty: Ferran Torres scored the only goal as PSG won 1-0 at Brest and avoided starting the campaign with four winless games, something that has only happened once in their entire history (back in 1978-79). And it was far from a comfortable or convincing win. Matvei Safonov had to make a huge save off Kamory Doumbia, who also hit the post. Nuno Mendes looked absent-minded at the back too, and he wasn't the only one. PSG weren't just outshot: They lost the xG battle too and lest we forget, this was against Brest, not Barcelona.
In each of the past two seasons, we've seen Luis Enrique's team start slowly and then go on to become European champions, so there's no need to go Chicken Little just yet. But the excuse -- that the World Cup finished late and players' preseasons were messed up -- rings a little hollow when there are other clubs with similar numbers of World Cup veterans who seem to have suffered no ill effects. PSG will likely be fine in Ligue 1, not least because most of the competition operated on a shoestring in the summer transfer window. But it's evident they need to kick it up several notches.
2. Tottenham Hotspur's goal drought feels endless ... but don't bring up mentality: The 0-0 home draw against Everton means it's now four straight games without a Spurs goal. Hamburg SV (who have played one fewer game) and Coventry City (who are newly promoted) are the only other clubs in Europe's Big Five to have failed to score a league goal this season, so yes, it's becoming a "thing." And maybe that's why Roberto De Zerbi, after stating the obvious ("We have to improve in the last third of the pitch") talked about "unblocking mentality."
When folks struggle to figure things out in practical terms, they get metaphysical and bring psychology and mentality into it. I'm not saying it's all nonsense -- there's a whole industry built around this not just in sports, but business and relationships too -- but too often it feels like and exercise in self-fulfilling prophecies. You can prove just about anything with "mentality" after the fact and in Tottenham's case, it seems there are far more obvious factors at play. Like the fact that after a decent start, they were outbattled and outhustled by blue-collar Everton. Or the fact that if you're going to start Dominic Solanke (and you should) he's going to need a certain kind of service, otherwise he'll have no impact, like on Saturday. Or the fact that Omar Marmoush and Sávio, when given more responsibility than they had at Man City, evidently struggle. Or the fact that Mateus Fernandes so far up the pitch in a game like this is a waste. I'd go to all of these before you wheel out the psychobabble.
1. Juventus' late collapse at Sassuolo is unacceptable, but not for the reasons you may think: It was a wild ending to a game that to that point had been relatively staid. Away to Sassuolo, Juventus had shown their usual limits and had gone a goal down just after the hour mark. So, they did what big teams do late on, committing men forward and getting an improbable equalizer with (of all people) Edon Zhegrova in the 82nd minute. Galvanized, they went for the win and conceded in transition in the 89th minute as Kieron Bowie beat Guglielmo Vicario. All over? Not even close, because Zhegrova (him again!) equalized in injury time and finally, three minutes later, Vasilije Adzic, who happens to be on loan from Juventus, notched the Sassuolo winner on the break.
Conceding late like that because you're going for the win breaks the old-school cardinal rule of Italian football ("can't lose is better than must win"), which is why Luciano Spalletti is getting hammered this morning. I have less of a problem with that -- following age-old Serie A conventional wisdom hasn't done much for the Italian game -- and I think Spalletti was right to go for it. The issue here was execution. On Bowie's goal, Darryl Bakola (no, not Barcola, as in Bradley, but somebody named Bakola, who is 18) sliced through Juve's defenders as if they were traffic cones, and Douglas Luiz gave Adzic so much space to shoot that he could have set up a picnic table between them. Tactics are fine and all, but you need guys who can do what they're paid to do as well.
