European Leagues / Ben Lyttleton / 19 October 2009 / Leave a comment

Ben Lyttleton tells us about a fascinating trend on the domestic front ahead of Matchday 3 in the Champions League. And why it's make or break time as regards the teams looking to book their places in the Champions League knock-out stages.

"This was not a blip as much as a trend: of the sides who reached last
Season's Champions League last 16, only five of them won their league
matches on this weekend of the season both this year and last year. That's
five of the top 16 clubs in Europe!"

The first thing most managers whose teams are competing in Europe do when presented with the fixture list for every new season is examine their opponents before and after Champions League weeks. The top guys might look at who they would be playing at the business end of the season, when Champions League quarter- and semi-finals are taking place ­ but all of them will want to know about their opposition before Matchday Three of the group stage.

Matchday Three, which takes place this week, is the first part of the double-header of fixtures that can often make or break a team's European pretensions. It also always comes after an international break, which causes a whole new set of problems for club coaches ­ as was seen by Liverpool's struggles against Sunderland after Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard came back from international duty carrying injuries and were therefore unavailable.

And though Benitez took the loss at Sunderland, their fourth of the season, with a degree of phlegmatism (publicly at least), his is not the only team to struggle in this week of the campaign. Over the weekend, Chelsea, Roma, Lyon, Bordeaux, Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, Stuttgart, Standard Liege, and AZ Alkmaar all lost while Juventus, Barcelona, and Panathinaikos also dropped points.

This was not a blip as much as a trend: of the sides who reached last Season's Champions League last 16, only five of them won their league matches on this weekend of the season both this year and last year. That's five of the top 16 clubs in Europe!

Whether we should extrapolate that fact into assessing the European chances of those five clubs is another matter. After all, even though they are all among the favourites, only three of them - Arsenal, ([12.0]) to win the competition, Manchester United, ([10.5]), and Bayern Munich, ([29.0]) ­ reached the last eight. The other two, Internazionale, ([16.5]) and Real Madrid, ([6.0]), have under-achieved in Europe in recent years, but this
season look well-placed to make the semi-finals. On top of that, all five sides have relatively little to worry about in terms of group qualification this week.

The same cannot be said of Liverpool, who face a crucial home match against Lyon this week (Liverpool are ([1.83]) to win, Lyon a long ([5.4])) after losing their last three matches. Lyon, on the other hand, ended their run of 16 unbeaten matches with a surprise loss at home to Sochaux. "I said to my players that they will be up against a Lyon team which has lots of players coming back from internationals and it's three days before a Champions League game with Liverpool," said Sochaux boss Francis Gillot. "So I told them it was perhaps just the right time to take on Lyon." And so it proved.

Results before big Champions League games are more likely to be affected than those after the matches, as coaches will tend to to avoid risking half-fit players. And that inevitably means that the teams with bigger squads will benefit, as Daniele Tognaccini, chief athletics coach at AC Milan's MilanLab, explained: "If you are playing four or five games consecutively, without the right recovery, the risk of injury is incredible,
and the probability of having one lesser performance is very high."

And with the stakes high for some clubs in European action this week ­ Liverpool, Juventus, Inter and AC Milan are all starting the week in third
place in their respective groups ­ it's no surprise that points were dropped
at the weekend. If results go against them this week, do keep an eye on the
prices for the matches prior to Matchday 4. Otherwise, in future make a note
of the mid-October fixtures as the time to lay the big teams.

Tags: Champions League betting, Chelsea results, Football tips, French football results, international football fixtures, Lyon