EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsAnother European soccer weekend is in the books ... let's get into it! First up is Chelsea, who have two wins from two Premier League games under new coach Xabi Alonso, only they got lucky in some respects in taking a 4-2 victory over a Brighton side that came to play.Meanwhile, Tottenham lost their second straight game to open the campaign, though there are some signs of life in Roberto de Zerbi's new-look squad and no reason to panic, at least not quite yet.In Italy, Como and Cesc Fabregas picked up an impressive 2-1 win at Napoli to show they mean business, though Inter Milan are still the team to beat even if their 1-0 win at Cagliari didn't exactly look convincing. Elsewhere, we had talking points galore for Borussia Dortmund (whose latest youth rebuild looks good), Man United (all hail Bruno Fernandes), Lionel Messi (who had the ninth four-goal game of his career), Liverpool (who again came from behind to draw 2-2, this time against Nottingham Forest) and much, much more.It's Monday morning, so what better time for some musings? Let's get into it.- Dawson: Man United's blowout win should ease Carrick's stress- Ogden: What late deals can we expect on Deadline Day?- O'Hanlon: The 10 best players in the game right nowChelsea make it two wins from two in 4-3 win over Brighton, but they won't look like this the rest of the seasonOr rather, if they do, they won't be very good. This is just not how teams aspiring to win the Champions League -- or those hoping to return to the Champions League, like Chelsea -- should play, especially at home. There's the conceding three goals part, sure, though you worry a little bit less about that because one came literally with the last kick (or header, in this case) of the game, another was an own goal and the other came after a craven error. More telling, I think, is the fact that Brighton (who were missing a bunch of regulars) failed to take advantage of a number of chances, partly through profligacy, partly because new Chelsea keeper Emiliano Martnez came up huge.Chelsea, of course, also missed some huge opportunities, but that tells you only that this game could have easily ended 7-5.Exciting to watch? Maybe for the neutral, less so for those in attendance. In fact, after Brighton battled back to a 2-3 deficit, murmurs and curses echoed around Stamford Bridge as fear set in.More important is the fact that you just can't play this way. You don't win titles with just 24% possession at home -- the lowest ever for a Chelsea side home or away since they started tracking these things in 2003-04 -- and the lowest-ever passes attempted and completed at Stamford Bridge. You can outgun the opposition and take risks, but not if you can't keep the ball. And in this game, Chelsea went north-south every time they won the ball back while, at the same time, as Xabi Alonso acknowledged postmatch, they simply sat too deep.It's clearly not by design. His previous sides didn't play like this. It is partly that it takes time to get used to his 3-4-2-1 scheme. The pressing movements are difficult to pick up for the front men, which means there are passing lanes for the opposition, which in turn means the back line has to be close to perfect. Against Brighton, it wasn't, time and again.But maybe the greatest issue is in the middle of the park. With Reece James and Moiss Caicedo returning from injury, Alonso turned to Romeo Lavia and Malo Gusto. Lavia is gifted but has a horrendous injury record (15 league starts in three years) while Gusto, a fullback by trade, is simply overmatched as anything other than a ball winner in that role. James' injury travails are well-chronicled, and Caicedo came on ... but came off again with an injury. Valentn Barco can pass, but isn't much in terms of physicality, and Enzo Fernndez has his bags packed and may not be there come Tuesday.With wingbacks who turn into wide forwards and center backs who need to cover a lot of ground, midfield is pretty key in Alonso's 3-4-2-1 in possession and out of it. That's what he needs to get right. Otherwise, the personnel is there as long as Jo�o Pedro doesn't get hurt.Alonso is still getting to know his squad and still preaching his soccer. This could take a while, but the early enthusiasm will help him get buy-in.A final thought on Martinez, who was thrown straight into the fray shortly after arriving from Aston Villa. Think of him as the final nail in the coffin of the "model" that limited Chelsea to young players, long contracts and furious player trading every summer. Alonso wasn't going to put up with it.Como pass first real test against Napoli; are these guys for real?Or did Max Allegri screw it up for Napoli? Regular readers will know I'm often critical of the Napoli coach, and to be fair: He was part of the problem Sunday, not the solution. There is a certain consistency for the Napoli coach. He seems to see everything through the lens of results and incidents, so it's entirely possible that he looks at the game, notes that Mathas Olivera and Andr-Frank Zambo-Anguissa made huge individual mistakes that led to Como's two goals, that Noa Lang should have done better with his chance in the first half, and concludes that he got things right. (Heck, if he knew what xG was, he might even point out that Napoli had a 1.39-1.05 edge in that category.)But to do that would mean losing sight of what actually happened on the pitch and how Allegri set up his team. Napoli -- who finished second last season and haven't lost any regulars over the summer -- sat deep and defensive at home vs. Como. They had 35% possession and managed just five shots in the first half, with just one on target (Rasmus Hojlund's goal, which was a fine piece of individual skill). You don't necessarily need the ball to be dangerous (witness Chelsea above: 30% possession in the first half, nine shots, three goals), but you can't just sit either and have no real plan for when you win it back. File it away in the Allegri Mystery Files.Why does Kevin De Bruyne need to come off the bench in a game like this? Why pick Lang, who had his bags packed for a return to Turkey? Why play Scott McTominay in a deep role reminiscent of his (bad) Manchester Untied days, rather than higher up the pitch, where he was devastating under Conte?But on to Como, because pointing out Napoli's flaws shouldn't take anything away from their performance. Cesc Fabregas is showing that you can be positive and possession-oriented, but also alert defensively. And that you can take good players -- other than Nico Paz, nobody at Como is great, though Assane Diao, Martin Baturina and a couple of others are on their way -- and get them to do great things if you're a great coach. Which Fabregas is becoming."We're Como, we're still Como, it's a big win, yes, but we're not getting carried away," he said. "We're not going to grow any faster than we're supposed to."From where I sit, they already are. The project may or may not be sustainable; teams that play in 13,000-seat stadiums tend not to win silverware over time. But there's no question they're showing Serie A what is possible. Let's see whether they can do the same in the Champions League ...Tottenham spanked again, but squint and you'll see (tiny) signs of progressNot enough, obviously, and there are bigger, broader questions that we'll get to, but until Anthony Elanga's goal at the hour mark -- which caught them flat-footed -- Spurs more than went toe-to-toe against Newcastle United before losing 2-0. That's not nothing, considering their front three included a center forward (Omar Marmoush) who scored three league goals last season, had just arrived and had never really played as a lone striker, flanked by Matys Tel (who is 21 and has never been a starter in his career) and Pedro Porro (who is a right back by trade). Two of the three central midfielders were new to the club, as was half the starting defense. (Oh, and one of the guys who wasn't new, Archie Gray, is a recycled midfielder.)Newcastle, of course, have also suffered huge upheaval in the summer, and unlike Spurs, they haven't spent hundreds of millions of pounds. So the above isn't to give Roberto De Zerbi excuses, it's to note how big the job is and how it's more a case of Matthias Jaissle doing an exceptional job in double-quick time.Those signs of progress for Spurs? Well, Marmoush looks like he wants to be there, which is a start. Despite his young age and the skepticism surrounding him, Mateus Fernandes (22) has plenty of personality. And for an hour, they were very much in the game and even showed some De Zerbi football DNA. That's the good news.The bad news? I'm not sure there's much clarity of thought here. You shouldn't be making two of your four biggest financial commitments of the summer transfer window -- Marmoush and Savinho, or Svio, as he now wants to be known -- in the final week. That's just bad planning. And those fees -- �60m in a year's time for the former, �70m for the latter -- seem way too high. A bit like Mateus Fernandes and Sandro Tonali.Sometimes you end up spending big because you've let players go and are desperate. But Spurs seem to have done the opposite. Richarlison, Kevin Danso, Pape Matar Sarr and possibly Lucas Bergvall are all being linked with moves elsewhere as we count down toward the deadline. That doesn't seem clever. You also wonder where Mohammed Kudus and Dominic Solanke, both just back from injury, fit in, much like James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski, both pegged for a September return. Not to mention Xavi Simons and Wilson Odobert, who are back in January.De Zerbi has to balance short-term and medium-term success, like all managers. I get it: It's not easy. But it feels as if this instability could haunt them all season long. As for Jaissle, weirdly, his lack of resources seems to have made his job at Newcastle a lot simpler.Quick hits10. Jose Mourinho is right not to get carried away with Real Madrid: He pumped the brakes after Sunday's 4-0 demolition of Malaga, saying "the tough times will come, the criticism will come, the negative moments will come ... right now we're just preparing ourselves for that."You can tell this isn't his first rodeo. Malaga were blown away inside half an hour; there is only so much you can learn about yourself in that situation. What they did learn was positive. The guys who came in -- Trent Alexander-Arnold, Antonio Rudiger, Eduardo Camavinga, Marc Cucurella, Brahim Daz -- looked motivated and productive. Jude Bellingham is carrying his monster World Cup form into the club season. Kylian Mbapp and Vinicius are showing a willingness to work off the ball. But Mourinho has been around the block, and he knows that whether or not this setup is sustainable will be determined down the road, against more challenging opponents.9. Greek wunderkinds shine for Borussia Dortmund in 2-0 win over Hamburg: It really doesn't make that much sense to lump them together other than for the fact that both are Greek, both arrived in the summer -- for a combined fee approaching 60 million -- both are very talented attacking midfielder/winger types and both have names starting with the letter K. After all, Giannis Konstantelias is 23 years old and has made nearly 150 senior appearances, whereas Konstantinos Karetsas is 18 years old (though he does have two seasons under his belt as a starter at Genk). The other thing they have in common is they defined Borussia Dortmund's convincing performance on Saturday.Karetsas set up Serhou Guirassy's opener, while Konstantelias (with the help of a deflection) scored the second. It's not just about them, though: Dortmund's defense, even without the injured Nico Schlotterbeck, didn't concede a single shot of any kind in the first half. It wasn't a perfect day -- the other supposed young phenom, Samuele Incio, came on and got himself sent off within five minutes, and Kostantelias had to be replaced after a noncontact injury. We'll know more on Monday, but situations like these always leave you to fret.8. Inter reaping less than they sow is not a problem: The numbers speak for themselves, and it was one-way traffic for Cristian Chivu's men away to Cagliari. Thirty-one shots on goal (Cagliari had none until the second half), 3.67 xG and six "big chances" created (by Opta's definition), but also just a single goal scored (Hakan Calhanoglou, after nine minutes) and a huge scare late on that could have led them to drop two points. Cue more fretting and worrying about their finishing and not putting games away.I'm not overly concerned by this. You worry when you don't create chances; less than when you don't finish them. Chivu's Inter scored 89 goals last season, the most in Serie A since 2021 and the most for an Inter side since 1951. That they didn't come against Cagliari is simply down to variance and randomness. If you really want to fret, worry about the fact they conceded two big late opportunities that Joseba Martinez had to snuff out. But not being clinical -- when you've been clinical before and when you're getting quality shots -- that's much less of an issue.7. Atletico Madrid find another dimension without a center forward: Once again, Julin lvarez wasn't "in the right frame of mind" (read: he's throwing a fit because he hasn't yet been able to force his move to Barcelona) and Alexander Sorloth was injured, which meant Diego Simeone had to invent an attack for the tricky away trip to Sevilla, who had won their first two games. He conjured up a kind of fluid front four, with Ademola Lookman, lex Baena, Kang-In Lee and Giuliano Simeone took turns leading the line. The upshot? By halftime they could have been four goals up, and they ended up settling for a 3-1 road win.Atletico keep getting linked with a last-minute move for a striker, especially if Alvarez leaves (unlikely with Barcelona picking up Gabriel Jesus, but you never know). But I'm not s sure that's necessarily the case. Baena, who scored two, has carried his World Cup form with him, Lookman is prolific and Kang-In Lee has started well. That combination -- plus Sorloth, of course -- ought to be enough to carry Atleti, especially if he goes with a back three (he didn't in Seville, though he did in previous games). If Alvarez comes back into the fold -- or, if you need help in January -- well, that's just a cherry on top.6. Just the four goals in one game for that Lionel Messi guy... Inter Miami had endured a tough time of late. In fact, they hadn't won an MLS game since before the World Cup, way back in mid-May. Leave it to Messi to deliver the perfect pick-me-up, scoring no fewer than four times in a 7-1 drubbing of CF Montreal.The pick of the bunch? Probably his third, when he somehow wiggled his way through the penalty area, the ball stuck to his foot, beating three opponents along the way before depositing it in the back of the net. It's the ninth time in this career that he has scored four in a single game, and somehow, I don't find that statistic surprising. He's 39 years old, folks ...5. RB Leipzig look sharp in opener ... are they Bayern's biggest domestic challenger? It would be something else if they turn out to be. They took a gamble on Martin Demichelis as coach (relegated with Mallorca), they lost Yan Diomande to Real Madrid and they have a positive net spend of 124 million. The newcomers -- Maxime Estve (from relegated Burnley), Rocco Reitz (from Borussia Monchengladbach) and Christopher Nkunku (back home after his Chelsea/Milan nightmare) -- hardly set pulses racing. Last season, lest we forget, they sort of backed into the Champions League places despite having the luxury of no European football.But they have identity, youth and plenty of fizz in their side. And they have an Antonio Nusa who, based on the stopover and the goal he scored in the 3-0 win over Borussia Monchengladbach, looks brimming with confidence. They have a gaggle of youngsters beyond Nusa who are either highly touted prospects (Castello Lukeba, Tidiam Gomis, Ezechiel Banzuzi) or were highly touted prospects looking for a second chance (Arthur Vermeeren, Conrad Harder, Johan Bakayoko). And when Christoph Baumgartner and Rmulo return from injury, they'll have veteran leadership too.4. Bruno Fernandes may be Man United's most important player since Bobby Charlton: And that was way before my time, so I'm not even sure. Let's be clear: we're not talking the best player (though I imagine he's up there), we're talking important as in valuable to the fortunes of the club. When you look at his supporting cast, when you consider the revolving door of managers and teammates and juxtapose it with his production, you can make a very strong case for him.You can also make a case that I'm blinded by his hat trick and assist. And that it was only Ipswich at home, and that United's comeback was prompted by an opponent slipping and a goal that shouldn't have stood. Maybe so. But it was Bruno who put the metaphorical foot on the neck of the opponent and stopped them getting back into the game. Carrick's United is very much a work in progress, and the challenges ahead are huge. Having Bruno to hold your hand might not be enough for it to be a success, but it makes things a whole heck of a lot easier.3. Filipe Luis and Monaco ride Paris Brunner to win over Marseille and top spot in Ligue 1: The 20-year-old German scored both goals in their 2-0 victory over l'OM, and the second especially showed off his strength, speed and confidence (check out the cutback and footwork). Having managed just three top-flight starts to date before this summer, this could well be his take-off season, and you wonder if he's going to be something more than Folarin Balogun's understudy (or indeed if Balogun will still be there when the transfer window closes).Like many Ligue 1 sides (and Marseille are no different), Monaco are operating on a shoestring this season (Maghnes Akliouche, Aladji Bamba and Caio Henrique are all gone) and will be placing their faith in youth. New boss Filipe Luis, after his exploits in Brazil with Flamengo, was an interesting choice -- European clubs tend to be snooty when it comes to Brazilian managers, even those who spent a lifetime in Europe as players -- and this is definitely a club to follow. Can they outlast you-know-who? No: in fact even Champions League qualification would be an exploit. But on early evidence, there's plenty going on here ...2. Luciano Spalletti finds a way as Juventus wait for deadline day help: I guess that's why he makes the big bucks. Spalletti has figured out how to make lemons with his lemonade. Against a Parma side who park the bus as well as anyone, Spalletti took the pitch without three bona fide starters (Khephren Thuram, Weston McKennie and Kenan Yildiz) and while still waiting for reinforcements in the transfer market. He gave starts to Douglas Luiz and Jonathan David (in the No.10 role, no less), two guys you'd imagine he wished weren't there, and he kept faith with Randal Kolo Muani up front, despite his harsh words for him the previous week.When that didn't work -- Parma had done nothing more than one off-target shot in the first hour, but Juve hadn't scored -- he had the guts to throw in a winger like Nico Gonzlez (another whose bags were supposedly packed in anticipation of a move) and play him through the middle. Gonzalez injected directness, personality and a penchant to shoot from distance, and he broke the ice with the help of a deflection. Teun Koopmeiners added a second late, and Juve won 2-0. They're still in a holding pattern right now in terms of squad and style, but they have six points from two games instead of two. And a lot of that is down to the coach.1. Liverpool again forced to come from behind to grab 2-2 draw: The difference is that last week, it was Newcastle away. This week was Nottingham Forest at home and until eight minutes from time, they were headed to their first opening-day defeat at Anfield in more than 20 years. Unlike last week, Andoni Iraola didn't wheel out the stats (and for good reason, because Forest had a higher xG, 2.30 to 1.75, and more touches in the opposition box), and he admitted that the result wasn't good enough. They did look better after the break -- not hard, given they had just one shot on target and a cumulative xG of 0.36 in the first half -- and Florian Wirtz hd a very solid game, but this doesn't look like an Iraola team at all. Let's see what happens in the final hours of the transfer window, but right now I'm not sure how you can carry a 4-2-3-1 with those attacking fullbacks (Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez), Wirtz in the No.10 hole and Dominik Szoboszlai in midfield.A word on what led to Morgan Gibbs-White's penalty, which came about after a quick throw from Liam Delap. Liverpool had been trying to make a triple substitution, but were delayed as the fourth official appeared not to be able to get his digital boards to work. Talk about the game eating itself. They were making substitutions in the game of football long before somebody invented substitution boards. You would hope a fourth official would remember that it's not about his toys: if his board isn't working, the football needs to come first. There are plenty other ways (including your headset) to tell the referee a team wants to make a substitution. Live and learn.
