What a weekend in European football! The Clásico in LaLiga well and truly delivered on the hype, with Jose Mourinho and Real Madrid walking away impressive 2-1 winners over Barcelona in front of a stunned Camp Nou crowd. In the big Premier League clash, Tottenham broke a historic winless streak to win 2-0 at Chelsea, while Man United's malaise deepened with a 3-0 home defeat against Bournemouth, one that might well spell the end of the Michael Carrick era at Old Trafford.
Elsewhere, we have talking points galore around Arsenal, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Borussia Dortmund and much more.
It's Monday morning, so what better time for some musings? Let's get into it.
- Dawson: Man United are stuck no matter who's boss
- Reaction: Mourinho guides Real Madrid to statement win over Barcelona
- Lindop: Iraola era at Liverpool finally has liftoff thanks to Isak, Barcola
Real Madrid blow LaLiga wide open with Clásico win
Yes, I know it sounds unhinged to talk about "reopening" the title race a few days before Halloween, with some 28 games to go. But such was Barcelona's dominance -- statistical, emotional and perceived -- just a few days back that a Clásico win over Real Madrid would have had the effect of supergluing the coffin shut. It's not hard to game out that scenario.
With a victory, Barcelona would have pulled nine points clear at the top of LaLiga and equaled Real Madrid in the all-time head-to-head. Jose Mourinho would be finding something to complain about and the Florentino Perez War Machine would be amplifying it. His critics would be pointing out that three straight away games were next, followed by the international break, i.e. sacking season. Lamine Yamal would be crowing on Ballon d'Or Day, while Kylian Mbappé would be catching strays from the folks who like to talk about individual statistics versus team awards.
Except all of that belongs to an alternate -- if very plausible -- universe. In reality, Real Madrid's 2-1 win means they're just three points back. (And Atlético Madrid, who are two back, might well have the opportunity to leapfrog Barça when they host them on Nov. 8.)
Once again, Mourinho disrupted the script. And he did it not in the way we've seen him do it at times in years past -- turning the game into a gladiatorial arena, flipping out at the match officials, grinding things out by any means necessary -- but by "out-footballing" Barcelona in their own house.
Let's be clear: both teams could have scored more, and this game could have taken a very different turn. Yamal squandered an early chance, Gerard Martín could have been smarter with his clearance, Raphinha more accurate with his finishing. But equally, Jude Bellingham could have released a wide open Kylian Mbappe in the second half instead of taking it himself, Mbappe could have not shanked that first-half chance, and Real Madrid could have been more clinical too. If you're the sort of person who just parses football down to episodes and highlights, you can argue this any which way.
More telling is what we saw beyond the obvious flashpoints at the Camp Nou. Yamal was shut down by a combination of Marc Cucurella and Yan Diomande. Pedri and Rodri were more than matched in the middle of the park by the combination of Bernardo Silva, Aurélien Tchouaméni and, when he came inside, Arda Güler. Raphinha was forced to retreat to find service. On the day, Mourinho out-coached Hansi Flick.
The Madrid coach turned Vinícius Junior's suspension into a positive, letting Diomande roam on the left, where he does his best work. Bernardo Silva added quality, geometry (and, occasionally, the right bite) to midfield. Andriy Lunin, deputizing for Thibaut Courtois, had zero stage fright (and was rewarded with a big hug from his coach after the game). Fede Valverde might not be the permanent answer at right back that's been lying in plain sight for years, but in a game like this he was hugely effective in both phases of play. Bellingham, while not flawless, tormented Rodri and was at the heart of several goal-scoring opportunities, as well as the winner. Eduardo Camavinga and Denzel Dumfries were the right substitutions at the right time.
Flick didn't adjust to Real Madrid because he's of the school that adapting to your opponent, especially at home, is a sign of weakness. Fine. But at least in terms of personnel -- on a night when the World Cup winning tandem of Rodri and Pedri were struggling -- you would have expected him to act sooner.
Absentees were a legitimate mitigating factor for Barça. Already without two fullback options in Jules Koundé and Eric García, he lost another one after half an hour when Xavi Espart was forced off for Alejandro Balde. Going for the win late on is nice and all (and in line with his DNA), but it ended up exposing Barça and, with hindsight, felt like a needless gamble. In the beat-the-dead-horse department, their defending cost them, too -- not so much the high line, but it's execution. (Maybe that was somewhat predictable when your fullbacks consist of João Cancelo and Balde, who had played 30 minutes of football to that point.)
Perhaps the individual quality was lacking as well: Gerard Martin (also a recycled a fullback playing center back) mishitting the ball across the face of his own goal is hard to accept at this level. When Flick turned to the bench to bring on attacking reinforcements and found himself turning to Gabriel Jesus and Karim Adeyemi, you couldn't help but wonder about how the club allocated its limited -- but precious -- resources in the summer.
Clásicos are a chance to set (and reset) the narrative. Both clubs can come out of this stronger. Getting spanked by Paris Saint-Germain and losing at home to Real Madrid can help remind Barcelona that despite the four goals a game, the going is tougher against the other super clubs, foreign and domestic. And obviously for Mourinho and Real Madrid, it's a reminder that they're not just a star-laden psychodrama/soap opera: they have outstanding players who are willing to work for a coach who can still be outstanding. And there's everything yet to play for in LaLiga.
As Man United mess gets worse, it's far easier to replace a manager than an owner or a bunch of players...
And that's why Michael Carrick should go, following Sunday's 3-0 home defeat to Bournemouth. The question to be asked isn't whether he deserves to be fired, it's whether we can realistically imagine a Manchester United competing at some point for league titles and Champions Leagues with him at the helm in the medium term. The answer in my view is "no."
It's not just the track record, nor the sense of drift that remains, nor the shambles in Como, not just the horror show against Bournemouth. It's the fact that this group doesn't seem to respond to him. That's a big part of the manager's job; whatever stratagems he has tried to come up with, they're not working and, in fact, smack of desperation.
If you're going to discipline your captain, Bruno Fernandes, for speaking out of turn in midweek, then do it: leave him out of the matchday squad entirely. Or if you must include him on the bench, like he did Sunday, make sure people know he's being punished. But when you tell folks that your best player (by a country mile) has been benched for "purely footballing reasons," you look silly. There is no "purely footballing reason" why Bruno shouldn't be starting. By saying that, you're implying that you understand nothing about football (and we know that's not the case) or that the decision was made above your head (which would be worrying).
However, if Carrick is removed, he can't be the fall guy. Everybody knows he is not the only issue at the club. The fans who applauded Carrick and booed the players get this. If director of football Jason Wilcox or CEO Omar Berrada or co-owner Jim Ratcliffe had done a lap of honor such as Carrick, they would have been booed too. This is a collective failure.
At this point, there are two likely outcomes: both of them are bad, but one less so than the other. The worse one is that Carrick gets bumped -- either now or in a couple weeks -- everybody stays in their job, the Glazers count down the hours until Ratcliffe leaves, some interim guy comes in, there's another coaching search and we're no further forward in 12 months' time. The least bad one is that you write off the season -- whether with Carrick at the helm or someone else -- and use the time to test your youngsters and assess what you have. At the same time, you start, top down, with yet another rebuild -- one that begins with Ratcliffe riding into the sunset, and the Glazers taking the time and resources to evaluate everything from Berrada on down.
Either way, it's going to be ugly and for United fans, it's going to feel like Groundhog Day.
Spurs' win at Stamford Bridge speaks volumes about what both sides want to do
It was only Tottenham Hotspur's second win in their past 35 attempts at Chelsea, and after their horrendous start to the Premier League season, two wins on the spin feels pretty good. We saw Spurs play the way Roberto De Zerbi wants them to play, and while Chelsea's abject performance had a lot to do with it, De Zerbi Ball is one of those weird phenomena that has a cumulative effect: The more they get to do it, the better at it they become and the better it works. That Spurs were able to do it on the road in a fixture that traditionally gets edgy and physical (as evidenced by Cole Palmer's red card) only makes it more meaningful.
The goals came late -- the first a gift from stand-in keeper Mike Penders -- but were ultimately deserved. I've hammered Mathys Tel for so long, I was positively elated to see his run and finish to put the game beyond doubt.
As for Chelsea, they confirmed the doubts many of us had in the summer. Plenty will focus on the fact that in João Pedro's absence, Xabi Alonso opted to play Morgan Rogers up front rather than a traditional striker like Danny Welbeck. But Welbeck is 35 -- and looked it when he started against Brentford -- and Alonso sees him every day, so I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt. (Emmanuel Emegha, Chelsea's other center forward, is injured again and a long-term project. He has hardly played, or scored, since the 2024-25 season.) That's down to squad construction.
To me, Chelsea's real issue is midfield. Giving Spurs so much of the ball (69%) at home is problematic to begin with because it plays to their strengths. It's also not the way a top club should be playing week in, week out. They have had the bulk of possession in less than half of their games this season. Again, you have to question squad construction: Chelsea are light in that area of the pitch, no matter how good Moisés Caicedo is. When your answer is four consecutive starts for 36-year-old Jordan Henderson, you either have a serious issue or you're asking the wrong question.
And a final word on Palmer, who was sent off with 10 minutes to go for a second yellow. Truth be told, he could well have gone for the first, when he barged into a prone Mateus Fernandes. The way he shouted, "What?! What?!" at the referee spoke to his evident frustration. You don't want to make too big a deal out of it -- Palmer rarely shows indiscipline -- but it wasn't a good look.
Quick hits
10. Last season's Arsenal show up in win over Everton: I don't mean it in a derogatory sense, but the fact both goals in the 2-0 win over the Toffees came from set pieces is too hard to ignore. Last year, they notched 36 in all competitions (25 of them in the Premier League) and set-piece guru Nicolas Jover became a household name. Saturday's goals were the first two they managed this campaign (the first was facilitated by some bad defending) after going the first 12 matches with a big goose egg. It's not to minimize the importance of set pieces, but yes, variance is very much a thing.
It's pretty evident that Mikel Arteta -- whether he admits it or not -- has been playing differently this season, possibly because arguably his three biggest attacking talents (Bukayo Saka, Martin Ødegaard and Kai Havertz) have been mostly fit and firing, unlike most of last year. Against Everton, with Saka injured, Ødegaard understated and Havertz on the bench until the final 20 minutes, they reverted to the 2025-26 edition. That's not a bad thing; in fact it's a very handy change of pace to have. But to go the next level (and stay there) Arsenal need to play more like this season's version.
9. Christian Pulisic fires resurgent AC Milan into third place: One of the side effects of the expanded group stages in European football is that there's often no common thread from one game to the next. It means Milan can get humiliated away to Bournemouth on Thursday and, three days later, make five changes and look brilliant away to Udinese. And no, it's not just that Bournemouth are better than Udinese and the fact that there were five new players, but it does help.
Pulisic played from the start, scored an early goal (with some delicious close control) and could have had a hat-trick of assists. Luka Modric, confirming the "less is more" concept, dispensed magic. It looked like they're starting to metabolise Ruben Amorim's system, and the manager continues to push younger players: Sankhoun Diawara, 20, made his debut and looked good, while five of the players who featured were 22 or younger. There are still injuries and Goncalo Ramos still looks like a foreign object, but the fact of the matter is Milan are still undefeated and are third with the same number of points of Roma, who have gotten tons of praise all season. That's not nothing.
8. Beier to the rescue as Borussia Dortmund stay top amidst some unfair criticism: It took a late wonder-strike from substitute Maxi Beier for Dortmund to down Eintracht Frankfurt at home and stay atop the Bundesliga. The goal came late, but I thought Nico Kovac's crew was largely in control throughout and, with some better finishing could have gone into the break a couple goals up.
Which is why I find some of the anger directed at Kovac a little unfair. Yes, sharing first place with Bayern Munich feels a little flukey now and yes, heading into Saturday they had won just one of four (and that was against -- ahem -- Sabah FK, when they squandered an industrial quantity of changes) and yes, they're not particularly exciting to watch. But the results are there, the injuries are a legitimate mitigating factor and at least we know there's another gear that can be reached. A bit of stability isn't a bad thing for this club.
7. Liverpool still not pretty, but that's four wins on the bounce: Not only are they not pretty, they're also not really giving off that Andoni Iraola vibe just yet, and as I wrote last week, they won't be giving it off for some time. But Sunday's 2-0 win over a red-hot Brighton was not something to be taken for granted, and it sees them rise up into fourth place. Results matter when you're a new boss still trying to instill your values.
You can turn your nose up at 36% possession at home, but that's a natural by-product of going two goals up early against a side like Brighton. You can point out that Florian Wirtz got lucky with his deflection and that while Alexander Isak is on a scoring tear, he's still nowhere near where he was when he was still at Newcastle. All true. But when you've got injuries and the games are coming thick and fast, a little bit of drive, work rate, humility and commitment go a long way. Ronald Araujo might have been playing to the crowd a little bit, but it plays nicely at Anfield and it shows a unity of purpose. Equally, Bradley Barcola hasn't yet offered anywhere near the attacking output to justify his transfer fee, but he ran himself into the ground defensively like the most humble of wingers on a promoted side, rather than a diva transferred in from the champions of Europe. If the goal is to build an Iraola team at Anfield, this is still a work in progress that will take a long time (and different personnel) to come to fruition. But in the meantime, it's nice to get the pressure of results out of the way...
6. Internazionale dig deep to regain top spot in injury time: As the clock struck 90 minutes, things were looking bleak for Inter away at Fiorentina. David de Gea had saved everything in sight and, when he didn't get to the ball, the woodwork did, denying Inter twice. (Inter's xG of 3.75 at the final whistle says it all.) Lazio had won the night before, Inter needed three points the catch them. Christian Chivu emptied his bench, including 19-year-old debutant center forward Matteo Lavelli. It worked. Marcus Thuram, perhaps feeling more responsibility with Lautaro Martínez out, conjured up a wickedly accurate de facto pass into the back of the net that eluded De Gea. He then drew the foul from Viery after a flick on from the kid Lavelli and Piotr Zielinski converted from the spot in the eighth minute of injury time.
Once again Inter turned it around: it's now 13 points that they've gained this season after falling behind. I'm not big on narrative, but not everybody feels that way. And if Chivu can sell them on this (corny, but effective) never-say-die schtick it may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
5. Julián Álvarez scores winner for Atlético Madrid and says sorry ... two months too late: I guess we'll find out whether Álvarez's apology has traction with the fans. Doubtless the relationship will never be the same, but the best-case scenario is he sticks around for a while because he and the club have common goals: winning games. After all, we don't necessarily love our plumber (and he doesn't love us): we just want him to unblock our toilet, and he just wants to get paid. And Álvarez did unblock the toilet (metaphorically) scoring the only goal in Atleti's 1-0 home win over Deportivo. Amazingly it was his first home league goal from open play in nearly 13 months: making you wonder if maybe the club wouldn't actually have been better off without him and with a big wad of cash in his place.
Referring to his attempt to engineer a move to Barcelona in the summer, Álvarez said it was a "mistake" in terms of "how I said it and the timing." Not that he's learned much in terms of timing, because waiting two months to say sorry (or, really, say anything) is also a mistake. Unless he figured that doing it after scoring a game winner might make fans more accepting. (News flash: Real fans aren't that gullible.) As for the game itself, it's six wins on the spin in LaLiga, but this was not a great performance and you can see Atleti's participation in the UEFA Champions League taking its toll. Without Kevin Sánchez's miss-of-the-season contender in injury time, this would (and should) have been two points dropped.
4. Bayern Munich play with fire, but ultimately beat down SC Freiburg ambitions: Bayern are simply so much more talented than just about anyone else they face in the Bundesliga that often you feel that if they drop points, it's because they've beaten themselves. There were shades of that away to Freiburg on Sunday. They took the lead (on an improbable Dayot Upamecano counterattack that saw the big man rumble through the length of the pitch), doubled it in the second half and squandered plenty chances to put the game to bed. Eight minutes from time, Freiburg pulled one back (with a little help from Tom Bischof and Jonas Urbig) and it was an unnecessarily nervy ending, with Urbig having to pull off another big save, before Bayern made it 3-1 in garbage time when Mio Backhaus got caught on the ball in the middle of the park.
You're tempted to give Bayern a pass given the week they had -- Vincent Kompany's health scare, post-Arsenal fatigue, no Joshua Kimmich, Luis Díaz or Aleksandar Pavlovic -- but then you remember the problem wasn't creating chances. It was finishing them and managing the game. And you would have thought that the second-stringers who did play -- from Lennart Karl to Nathaniel Brown to Bischof -- might have made more of the opportunity.
3. AS Roma fight back to snatch draw at Napoli as Sam Beukema embarrasses himself: Even with their big guns unavailable (starting keeper, captain, midfield general, and most talented player ... how's that?) this Roma side gives you the sense that anything can happen. The team showed it away to Napoli, coming back from 2-0 down with 21 minutes to go and then again from 3-2 down with seven minutes left. Roma are front-foot forward and never let their heads drop, which is a credit to manager Gian Luigi Gasperini and to the players (and, for the neutral, makes them a lot of fun to watch).
As for Napoli, Max Allegri needed a win. He got a draw instead and -- again -- a red card (maybe it's the whole taking off his jacket thing). Napoli showed baby steps of improvement -- funny how if you play your talented players (like Kevin De Bruyne, Scott McTominay and André-Frank Zambo-Anguissa together) you tend to get a little better -- but let's not kid ourselves. One goal was an overhead worldie from Zambo-Anguissa, another was McTominay firing from 30 yards out -- an ode to the improbable low-xG attempts. We do have to talk about Beukema too. In the buildup to Roma's equalizer, he threw himself to the ground clutching his tummy after Leonardo Balerdi hit his arm, miraculously got back up, ran around and then threw himself back to the ground untouched after the goal. In an era of VAR, this is an incredibly unwise thing to do (especially the way officials have been refereeing this season). He should, at a minimum, have been booked and you can only hope he gets some sort of retrospective ban. If not from the league, from Allegri.
2. Enzo Maresca is right that Manchester City's defeat at Aston Villa is not a concern: I don't know if I'd have gone as far as he did ("We deserved to win") but based on performance, he's correct. Man City hit the woodwork, created many more chances than Aston Villa did and Zion Suzuki made some huge saves. One of Villa's goals came from a horrendous Marc Guéhi blunder and on the other, Gianluigi Donnarumma should have done a lot better. It's only a concern if you think that's their level and mistakes like that are going to be par for the course with those two. I don't (and, in any case, there are alternatives to Guéhi in the squad, less so with Donnarumma).
That's not to take anything away from Unai Emery and Villa. They still ended City's unbeaten league run and they're still flying higher than anyone expected after the financially driven exodus of stars over the past few seasons. I'm also happy for Nicolas Jackson. He has made huge strides since coming to the Premier League as a raw 21-year-old, and he has been treated as little more than a pawn on a balance sheet since then.
1. Juventus win away to stave off crisis talk, but we've still got a striker problem: I'm not sure how real the rumors of Luciano Spalletti getting the sack without a win at Lecce actually were, but the three away points buy him time. Juve looked fine in the first half and suffered a bit after the break, but without the 2-0 victory they'd be in the bottom half of the table, which is just not acceptable.
The issue, though, is I'm not sure that what we saw at Lecce is something you can build on. A front two of Nick Woltemade and Randal Kolo Muani is simply not viable, partly because neither has performed particularly well (between them they managed just one shot each), and partly because if you're going to play them in a 3-5-2 like they did, it means not having wingers. And for a club that invested heavily in a bunch of wide men -- Nico Gonzalez, Edon Zhegrova, Chico Conceicao, Jeremie Boga, Kerim Alajbegovic -- that makes no sense, nor will it make sense when Kenan Yildiz returns in December. Then there's Douglas Luiz, who monstered the game. Sure, he was exceptional this weekend, but if you think that will happen on a regular basis, you need your head examined. The truth is that there's a long road back to respectability. You did what you needed to do to win, but you won't get there this way.
