Champions League Round of 16 (15th Feb - 16th Mar)

Atletico lost to Levante 1-0 who are placed 20th, we might get through the tie.
 
Liverpool beat AC Milan with Phillips, Minamino, Morton, Williams, Woltman and Bradley...was that meh?

Woltmann and Bradley were subbed on at 90+3. Anyway as I wrote in my comment, nowadays Liverpool B team would defeat almost every non-PL european team.. But that's because of money.

Your starting XI in San Siro did cost € 260m and, beside Salah and Alisson, that was pretty much your B team as far as I know.. € 260m.
Milan Starting XI did cost them €145m.
The gap between Premier League and the other league has become immeasurable, and things are getting worse. Yesterday I did read that for the first time in the history of football the revenues from overseas TV right are higher than the domestic ones. Premier League 2022.
 
Inter have actually outspent Liverpool over the past few seasons and the past decade.

Inter has a positive net spend for the last there seasons. How is Pool’s ?
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Liverpool beat AC Milan with Phillips, Minamino, Morton, Williams, Woltman and Bradley...was that meh?
Milan missing Kjaer, Leao, Rebic, Calabria.. and I am forgetting a few. But still as he said the B squad of Liverpool should beat most teams comfortably.
 
Inter have actually outspent Liverpool over the past few seasons and the past decade.

This seems an interesting claim, so I checked this out on transfermarkt, and from 16-17 (Klopp's first summer window) through to 21-22, Liverpool have outspent Inter, but only just. Liverpool have a net spend of 192.27 million, while Inter have a net spend of 191.85 million.
 
This seems an interesting claim, so I checked this out on transfermarkt, and from 16-17 (Klopp's first summer window) through to 21-22, Liverpool have outspent Inter, but only just. Liverpool have a net spend of 192.27 million, while Inter have a net spend of 191.85 million.

Drat, you fell into the trap. I can hear the hordes of Redcafe intellati (tm) coming over the hill to impart their knowledge on spend. :lol:
 
This is most definitely a trap! Don't fall for it guys. :nervous: :lol:
“Positivt” means “positive”. Blame the Swedish autocorrect. I hope that’s not the issue here ?

Based on the last 3 seasons, Inter made a profit selling players. What is Pool’s net spend in the same period?
 
“Positivt” means “positive”. Blame the Swedish autocorrect. I hope that’s not the issue here ?

Based on the last 3 seasons, Inter made a profit selling players. What is Pool’s net spend in the same period?

Why 3 seasons? I took the 16-17 season because that was Klopp's first summer window. Here are the numbers. All figures from transfermarkt.

Inter
16-17 -127.22m
17-18 -52.55m
18-19 -9.90m
19-20 -112.52m
20-21 -38.66m
21-22 +149.00m
-191.85m

Liverpool
16-17 +4.93m
17-18 +9.56m
18-19 -126.79m
19-20 +30.69m
20-21 -58.91m
21-22 -51.75m
-192.27m

For comparison's sake.

United
16-17 -123.98m
17-18 -137.61m
18-19 -46.94m
19-20 -138.26m
20-21 -57.87m
21-22 -98.37m
-603.03m

City
16-17 -161.69m
17-18 -203.54m
18-19 -18.89m
19-20 -79.67m
20-21 -86.09m
21-22 -45.63m
-595.51m
 
“Positivt” means “positive”. Blame the Swedish autocorrect. I hope that’s not the issue here ?

Based on the last 3 seasons, Inter made a profit selling players. What is Pool’s net spend in the same period?

I didn't mean the spelling. It's an ongoing joke on Redcafe about Liverpool and net spend. Ongoing in the sense of "lalalalalalalalala". ;)
 
Why 3 seasons? I took the 16-17 season because that was Klopp's first summer window. Here are the numbers. All figures from transfermarkt.

Inter
16-17 -127.22m
17-18 -52.55m
18-19 -9.90m
19-20 -112.52m
20-21 -38.66m
21-22 +149.00m
-191.85m

Liverpool
16-17 +4.93m
17-18 +9.56m
18-19 -126.79m
19-20 +30.69m
20-21 -58.91m
21-22 -51.75m
-192.27m

For comparison's sake.

United
16-17 -123.98m
17-18 -137.61m
18-19 -46.94m
19-20 -138.26m
20-21 -57.87m
21-22 -98.37m
-603.03m

City
16-17 -161.69m
17-18 -203.54m
18-19 -18.89m
19-20 -79.67m
20-21 -86.09m
21-22 -45.63m
-595.51m

I took 3 seasons because that’s when Marotta came to Inter. And it’s much more relevant to what the team look like right now.
 
I took 3 seasons because that’s when Marotta came to Inter. And it’s much more relevant to what the team look like right now.

If we're talking different time periods, then there isn't a direct comparison. For what it's worth, Klopp made a profit in his first two seasons.
 
Tier 1: City, Bayern
Tier 2: Liverpool, PSG
Tier 3: Chelsea, Real, Inter
Tier 4: Dortmund, Sevilla, Barcelona, Atletico, Milan, Napoli, Juventus, Atalanta, United, Arsenal
 
Tier 1: City, Bayern
Tier 2: Liverpool, PSG
Tier 3: Chelsea, Real, Inter
Tier 4: Dortmund, Sevilla, Barcelona, Atletico, Milan, Napoli, Juventus, Atalanta, United, Arsenal
I don't really keep up with the Bayern Munich news, but they looked hardly convincing in their match. Man City, Liverpool, and PSG look about at a similar level. The quarter finals should be really interesting. Hopefully, United have a seat in the round.
 
Agree, PSG is definitely tier 1. They're dominating L1, totally outclassed Real Madrid few days ago and "beated" 3-2 M.City over two matches in the group stage despite they didn't play very well.
Bayern topped an easy UCL group, are not doing as good as expected in BuLi and just drew 1-1 in Salzburg..

I'd swap Bayern with PSG, would put Inter in tier 4 and add: Ajax as tier 3 team; Porto and Leverkusen as tier 4 teams.
 
Tier 1: City, Bayern
Tier 2: Liverpool, PSG
Tier 3: Chelsea, Real, Inter
Tier 4: Dortmund, Sevilla, Barcelona, Atletico, Milan, Napoli, Juventus, Atalanta, United, Arsenal
Tier 1: City, Bayern
Tier 2: Liverpool, PSG
Tier 3: Chelsea, Real, Inter, Barca, Atletico, United, Juve
Tier 4: Dortmund, Sevilla, Milan, Napoli, Atalanta, Arsenal

Is more accurate.
 
What's sort of depressing is that, with the exception of City and Liverpool, this is probably the lowest quality CL on paper that I can remember for a long time. All club's have their weaknesses that seem exploitable. And despite that, I barely expect us to get to the quarter finals.
 
I don't think Bayern are tier 1 under Naglesmann. They have a chance of winning it but it wouldn't be a surprise to see them get turned over 4-0 by someone like Liverpool.
 
Wouldn't surprise me if Chelsea slip up here. They've been relatively poor for a while now.
Lille has been beyond poor. 11th in the league (that's like the results of Leicester or Aston Villa, only in a poorer league). Chelsea is the luckiest team on earth. The choices were Bayern, Ajax, Real and Lille and they drew Lille twice... Contrarily Salzburg is cursed, they had all 8 choices open to them and they drew City and then Bayern. You might say Bayern on current form is an "easier draw" than City, but it is still one of the 3 worst possible scenarios.
 
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Lille has been beyond poor. 11th in the league (that's like the results of Leicester or Aston Villa, only in a poorer league). Chelsea is the luckiest team on earth. The choices were Bayern, Ajax, Real and Lille and they drew Lille twice... Contrarily Salzburg is cursed, they had all 8 choices open to them and they drew City and then Bayern. You might say Bayern on current form is an "easier draw", but it is still one of the 3 worst possible scenarios.

Admittedly I haven't followed Lille this season, only Chelsea. I don't think Bayern would ever be the easier draw though!
 
I was thinking the same too, might bet against Chelsea even without the slightest clue how good Lille are..
 
Admittedly I haven't followed Lille this season, only Chelsea. I don't think Bayern would ever be the easier draw though!
I only meant Bayern "on its current form" is an easier draw than City. And given all the injuries they have right now it is a reasonable stance. But Bayern with all their players on form and available is IMO the best team in Europe.


I was thinking the same too, might bet against Chelsea even without the slightest clue how good Lille are..
Lille is a bit unpredictable but I think Chelsea is playing them at the right time. Lille started the season very slow, got some form in November/December, winning their CL group. But after the Christmas break, they got knocked out of the Cup by their local rivals Lens (blowing a 2-0 lead in the process) and that seems to have hurt them. 7 goals conceded and 2 scored in the last 4 league games.
 
It seems like most of the top contenders at the start of the season have shown real weaknesses. The more I watch Bayern the less impressed I am with them. We know what PSG, Real Madrid and Chelsea's problems are. City and Liverpool appear, to me at least, as with the least problems and therefore the top 2 favourites.
 
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It seems like most top of the contenders have shown real weaknesses at the start of the season. The more I watch Bayern the less impressed I am with them. We know what PSG, Real Madrid and Chelsea's problems are. City and Liverpool appear, to me at least, as with the least problems and therefore the top 2 favourites.
Totally agree. It’s going to go down to the luck of the draw imo. Say Chelsea and Utd are good favourites to go through, we are both one favourable draw (winners of Villarreal v Juve maybe?) away from having a great shot at the semis where everything is evened up.
I prefer it this way rather than the super squads who dominated over the last decade
 
I would be pleasantly surprised if we Juve do better than losing 2-0 or 3-1 tonight, such is the dire state of our squad. :D Without the away goal rule, we may even attempt a serious comeback at home in mid March.
 
Since in the last 2 seasons they were eliminated because of the away goal rule (0-1/2-1 vs Lyon and 1-2/3-2 vs Porto), that's good news for Juventus.
Then honestly I don't have much hopes for Juve too, especially given Bonucci, Chiellini Dybala and Chiesa are out. They have no defence, no creativity upfront and Villarreal are a good team.
 
Is it me or is Dybala injured every single time Juventus has to face a crucial KO stage game?
 
For me the favorites are the same as at the beginning of the campaign: City, Bayern, Liverpool

City probably are the best team right now, but we all know that they are potential bottlers while Bayern and Liverpool tend to rise to the occassion in these kind of ko tournaments.
 
Anyone here quietly hopeful that we might win the Champion’s League or get to the finals at least despite not being the favourites? We are playing without the pressure or expectation to progress any further past the current stage. That itself should spur the players to go on a magical run.