Madrid derby draw yields drama, Man United misery, more: Marcotti recaps the weekend

Another weekend of European soccer, and another boatload of talking points to unpack. In LaLiga, the biggest game of the season so far ended with controversy and points shared as Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid endured a 20-minute stoppage in play and a 1-1 draw. In the Premier League, Tottenham took advantage of a Man United side in disarray to rack up a 3-0 victory, and Bayer Leverkusen turned in a surprisingly cautious performance while drawing at Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga‘s clash of presumed title contenders.

Elsewhere, there’s lots to discuss about Liverpool (who beat Wolves to go top of the Premier League), Manchester City (who drew at Newcastle in their first big game without Rodri), Barcelona (who rotated too many stars in a shock 4-2 defeat at Girona), and Napoli (who went top of Serie A as Antonio Conte’s methods finally look like they’re working).

It’s Monday. Gab Marcotti reacts to the biggest moments in the world of football.

Real Madrid pegged back in injury time by Atlético as crowd issues temporarily halt game

Let’s get the football out of the way first. A Madrid derby is always a high-stakes game, even more so with Barcelona losing the day before, and it was interesting how the two coaches approached it. With Kylian Mbappé unavailable, Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti largely went back to last year’s blueprint, with Vinícius and Rodrygo as the front two and Jude Bellingham given licence to roam behind, while Luka Modric slotted in to provide creativity as Toni Kroos did a year ago.

Diego Simeone, on the other hand, who isn’t shy about chopping and changing, drew up an entirely new look for Atleti, introducing a back four, dropping his playmaker Koke and shoehorning Antoine Griezmann, Julián Álvarez and Alexander Sørloth into the lineup. Maybe it was meant to be a curveball, but given how cautious both teams were in the first half, it had little effect as both teams evidently saw this more as a “can’t lose” than a “must win.”

Simeone’s decision to introduce Koke at half-time opened things up somewhat, and the game came to life shortly before Éder Militão gave Real Madrid the lead. Ancelotti’s team grew after the break, with Vinícius and Bellingham dialing back the clock to last season. (Rodrygo? Less so, and if he turns in a few more performances like Sunday night, he’ll be the one missing out when Mbappé returns.)

9 — Palmer steals the show in wild Chelsea win: I’m all for being bold, but Chelsea and especially Brighton took this to an extreme, at one point looking like parodies of themselves. Brighton’s absurdly high line yielded chance upon chance for the home side, while Chelsea’s obsession with playing out from the back and inviting the press (with this set of players) could have cost them far more than it did. In the end, Chelsea won 4-2 because they varied the attack and because they have Cole Palmer, who was on another level, scoring all four goals. With better finishing (Enzo Maresca wasn’t lying when he said Palmer alone could have had six or seven), they might have hit double figures. This game was so odd that it’s hard to even analyse other than concluding that Palmer — who moved to Chelsea from Manchester City in a comparably paltry £40m ($53m) deal 13 months ago — might be worth more than anyone at his old club not named Erling, Rodri or Phil. It doesn’t reflect well on his previous employers.

8 — All hail the “Conte Effect” as Napoli go top of Serie A by beating Monza: We’ve seen this before. Give Antonio Conte a couple signings and a whole week between games and you’ll see dividends. Whatever else you think of him, few coaches worldwide have the sort of impact he can have. And It’s him more than the signings thus far. Alessandro Buongiorno and Scott McTominay have been solid, Romelu Lukaku hasn’t quite found his footing yet, which means mostly it’s been about getting last year’s crew to do better. Conte himself has been the one pumping the brakes, pointing out that, other than Juventus, they haven’t had a particularly tough fixture list thus far. The man is playing the long game…

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Michallik: Slot making Liverpool’s post-Klopp transition painless

Janusz Michallik says the biggest compliment you can pay Arne Slot is that he’s stopped pundits talking about life after Jurgen Klopp.

7 — Less is more working for Slot as Liverpool go top of Premier League: Liverpool were very rarely out-hustled by opponents in the Jurgen Klopp Era. Under Arne Slot, they can still put the hammer down, but they are also comfortable picking their spots and letting their possession game do the work. Rather than being drawn into a slugfest by a Wolves side who are far better than their record, they concentrated on the basics and keeping their shape, again letting Ryan Gravenberch grow into the midfield general role and running out 2-1 winners. Results-wise, they’re ahead of where they thought they’d be; performance-wise, they’re clearly growing. Which is what matters to a new coach.

6 — Vlahovic masterclass suggests Thiago Motta is pushing the right buttons at Juventus: A week ago, eye-brows were raised when Thiago Motta yanked Vlahovic for (of all people) Tim Weah at half-time in Juventus’ scoreless draw with Napoli. It would be silly to say that motivated the big Serb, but it certainly didn’t deter him on the pitch as evidenced by this two goals (the second, a stunner) in the 3-0 win over Genoa. When he’s like this, he’s close to unplayable and if Motta can keep him scoring while maintaining the water-tight back line (Juventus are the only side in Europe’s Big Five leagues who have yet to concede), they can start talking league title in Year One of his tenure.

5 — Leicester win should teach Arsenal that they just need to put games away: Weird things happen in this sport, sure, like James Justin getting a deflected goal and then scoring a worldie to make it 2-2, but this should have been out of sight well before that. Arsenal were rescued by a bit of fortune and the usual set-piece prowess, with Mikel Arteta understandably spinning it as best he could in public: “In theory, when you play like that you should never get to this point [allowing an opponent to come back from 0-2 to 2-2 at home] … but I’m even happier with how we dealt with the situations afterwards [and how we were] emotionally in control.” He’ll be happier still if he can turn this into a teachable moment: if you want to win the league and you’re this much in control, you need to kill games off.

4 — Lautaro comes alive at the right time as Inter cruise: The headline stat was that Lautaro Martínez had yet to score for Inter this season and, in fact, had scored just once for the Nerazzurri since last February. So much for stupid numbers (and these are particularly stupid, since he scored plenty for Argentina at the Copa America). It was reasonable, after the summer he had, that it would take him a while to get going. Against Udinese, Lautaro was back to his best in a 3-2 away win: two goals, an assist and several big chances. Inter have their attacking lynchpin back, and the good news is that they’re deeper up front than they were last season.

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Michallik: Man City have a ‘major lack of creativity’ with no Rodri or De Bruyne

Janusz Michallik worries about what he saw from Manchester City in their 1-1 draw with Newcastle.

3 — It’s not just about Rodri, but Phil Foden too as Man City held to a draw: Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Newcastle makes it three straight games without a win for Manchester City (no, the League Cup doesn’t count) and the last time that happened was two-and-a-half years ago. It’s easy to point to Rodri’s absence, but I thought the combination of Rico Lewis, Mateo Kovacic and Manuel Akanji stepping up worked well enough. More relevant were Newcastle’s performance, the defensive hiccup that led to Anthony Gordon‘s penalty, Erling Haaland‘s off day and, especially, Phil Foden. He wasn’t fully fit going into he season, but he has now appeared in four league and European games, all of them off the bench. This is the guy who had 19 goals and eight assists en route to being named Player of the Year last season. City are deep, yes, but probably not deep enough to cope with prolonged absences for Rodri and Kevin De Bruyne and a Foden who is there in body only.

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Burley: Osasuna loss a ‘reality check’ for Barcelona

Craig Burley explains why Barcelona may have to re-evaluate their expectations following a 4-2 loss to Osasuna.

2 — A rotation too far for Flick as Barca fall to Osasuna: Some will throw Hansi Flick under the bus in these circumstances. With eight senior players out, he still decided to leave Alex Balde, Raphinha, Lamine Yamal and Iñigo Martínez on the bench, stuffing the side with La Masia guys. I get the criticism especially with more manageable games (like a Champions League date Young Boys at home in midweek) coming up ahead of the international break. Then again, he’s been preaching faith in the kids and the “next man up” ethos since he arrived, so maybe it’s not surprising that he would push it for one more game. When you have momentum, it’s hard to pump the brakes at the right time.

1 — Aston Villa miss their chance after second-half collapse at Ipswich: Unai Emery may be an acquired taste, but he’s pretty good at photographing situations. So when he notes how poor Villa were after the break, you tend to believe him. In fact, after going 2-1 up, they cobbled together just three shots for 0.20 xG and suffered against Ipswich’s intensity and movement. Liam Delap could have had a hat-trick and Diego Carlos will get nightmares over the stepover that turned him inside out. Games (and performances) like this one can leave their mark, for better and for worse.