This week’s Champions League round-up

EXCEPT for Liverpool’s capitulation in Seville, it was another excellent week for English clubs in the Champions League.

And here’s a stat to enjoy over your brunch...

If everything goes to plan, we should have nearly a third of the sides left in the last-16. Job very nearly done…

ATTACKING THE DEFENCE

It’s very fashionable to have a dig at Liverpool’s back-line but what can you do when they’re the gift that keep on giving. Yes, just when you think Alberto Moreno has suddenly realised that he’s actually a defender, up he pops and all but confirms all your worst fears about him. The game against his old club Seville was peak Moreno. At fault for the first goal before conceding the penalty for the second, he was taken off on the hour, just to spare the poor lad any further punishment. Of course, it’s easy to blame the likes of Moreno for Liverpool’s capitulation. But quite how Jurgen Klopp seems to escape any censure for his side’s continued failings at the back is beyond me.

SPURS HAVE WHAT IT TAKES

After their mini-wobble of late, Spurs proved they have what the American military like to call "intestinal fortitude".

They came from behind at Borussia Dortmund to win 2-1 and top Group H. OK, so Dortmund aren’t the team they’ve been in recent years but that’s a maximum six points against the Germans as well as four taken against Real Madrid. They called this the "Group of Death" when it was drawn earlier in the year and nobody – not even Mauricio Pochettino, I suspect – thought Spurs would end up winning it. Fast forward three short months and Tottenham will be one of the, teams nobody wants to draw in the last-16.

BLUE TUESDAY

It says something about how brilliant Manchester City have been this season, that we went into their game against Feyenoord expecting another deluge of goals but came away disappointed with a 1-0 win. While the performance might have been one of their least scintillating of a stellar season, it’s a measure of how far they’ve come that they can still get a result. A few years ago the game would have ended in a draw or even a defeat. It’s the sign of real champions.

CONTE’S TACTICAL MASTERCLASS PAYS DIVIDENDS

No Alvaro Morata? What fresh madness is this?

Well, Antonio Conte’s surprise return to 3-4- 3 certainly worked wonders away at Qarabag where the lightning trio of Eden Hazard, flanked by Willian and Pedro put the Azerbaijanis to the sword with devastating effect. Champions Chelsea have come in for some criticism this season – some of it quite justifiably – put they’re slowly getting back into their groove, winning six of their last seven games in all competitions. Are they out of the Premier League race? Probably. Can they go far in the Champions League? Certainly.

UNITED WE FALL?

Did he underestimate Basel or simply have one eye on United's weekend game against Brighton at Old Trafford? Either way, Jose Mourinho’s miserable face in the wake of a 1-0 defeat suggested he’d been hard done by. No change there then.

"We played against a team that played with five defenders,” he grumbled. Which, by my reckoning, is about three less than United played with against Liverpool at Anfield last month.

From The Sun