Today is a big day for Liverpool and Arsenal. Because they are going to play against each other and Liverpool are the home team. Liverpool have important missing players before this match. Keita, Mane and Salah have been selected for their national teams and they won't be able to play. But Arsenal are facing the same situation also. Aubameyang, Elneny, Partey and Pepe are at their national teams now. Xhaka, Smith Rowe and Odegaard's conditions are doubtful. They played against each other once in the PL and Liverpool demolished them by 4-0. But in the first leg in the EFL Cup, we never know what can happen. My first choice is both teams to score.

What a match it is! I didn't expect Barcelona to resist Real Madrid this much.  Actually, Real Madrid got ahead two times but Barcelona still equalized the score and we are in the extra time now. And Valverde carried his team ahead once more in the 98th minute. Barcelona are trying their best in the second half of the extra time now as they are 2-3 behind. But I think that Barcelona won't score the equalizer once again. Real Madrid will reach the final.

https://www.marca.com/en/football/bundesliga/2022/01/11/61dd8e7946163f5f6c8b4652.html

It looks like Borussia Dortmund are really determined to make Erling Haaland sign a new contract with them. And they are trying to find out what his demands are and whether he is thinking of leaving the team in the summer certainly. They will hope for him to stay of course as he is the most important part of the team I assume. They wouldn't like to lose their best striker. But in my opinion he will still choose to leave as long as he gets a satisfying offer from bigger clubs.

There is a delightful match in the EFL Cup in half an hour. Tottenham are hosting Chelsea in the second leg. Chelsea won the first leg by 2-0 as you can remember. Son is injured now and will not play in this match. But Kane is still in the starting eleven which is a good thing for Tottenham. However, he hasn't brought his old days back yet. In this case, I think that Tottenham will have a really hard time. I think both teams can score and it might end up with a 1-1 draw.

And here we are. There is a great game tonight which is going to be Chicago Bulls - Brooklyn Nets. Bulls are leading their conference and Nets are following them right behind in the standings. Bulls' recent form is better now as they lost only once in their last five games. And these teams played against each other two times already in this season. And Bulls defeated them home and away both. But this time Nets have Irving too. Maybe they can have their revenge.

The matchups in the next stage are closing in. And I have still not changed my opinion about the Barcelona - Napoli matchup. I still think that Barcelona don't have much chance against Napoli. They are newly trying to get better day by day. But I still don't see their performance good enough to beat big teams. Napoli are much better than them now considering their performances in the Serie A. They started to pull themselves together. If it goes on like this, I think that Napoli won't have a so big difficulty in eliminating them.

I'm not sure about this. His statistics in the past didn't impress me that much. Dusan Vlahovic (21) is younger than Scamacca (23). And Vlahovic has been performing just great so far. He is very good at finishing now. He got 21 goals in 37 Serie A matches last season. And in this one, he has scored 16 goals in 20 Serie A matches so far. This is even much more impressing. He is continuning to get better unlike Scamacca. If I were in Juventus' place, I'd go for Vlahovic rather than Scamacca. But it is my humble opinion of course. 

And Atletico Madrid really stumbled again. But I get them also as their opponent was way tough for them. Villarreal have been in a far better shape than Atletico Madrid for many weeks seemingly. So it was obvious that Atletico Madrid would have a hard time beating Villarreal. But at least they could have tried more than this. Atletico Madrid's main struggle is with their attacking line. They are just having serious problems when it comes to scoring more goals than they concede.

Federico Chiesa is an important loss for Juventus indeed. Maybe his statistics hasn't been very fascinating in this season until this point but he is still one of the biggest players of the team. When we take this into account, Juventus can start having a little more difficulty in winning their next matches. However, they are still doing great right now. They haven't lost a single match for seven weeks in a row in the Serie A. And as of this incident, we will see if it will affect them very badly.

https://as.com/futbol/2022/01/08/primera/1641616956_546567.html?smm=CM_ES_TW&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1641639925

According to AS, Barcelona are targeting to sign Juventus striker Alvaro Morata as he has only one year left on his contract with Atletico Madrid currently and his loan at Juventus expires this summer. And in this case, I think that Juventus should go for a much better striker. Because Morata isn't a very good striker in my opinion. He is just an overrated forward from my point of view. If Juventus sign a top striker for example, we can see a very visible change for Juventus in terms of finishing attacks by goals.

Real Madrid and Sevilla both won their matches on this week and consolidated their places in the standings. And now, Atletico Madrid must win against Villarreal to be able to prevent themselves from getting away from those two teams. But so far, Villarreal have been showing a more impressive performance comparing to Atletico Madrid. Maybe Atletico Madrid scored first but Villarreal equalized it quickly. They missed a penalty first and their goal was disallowed by VAR also. But right after it, they still scored. And if Atletico Madrid don't improve their game, Villarreal can even be the winner.

As the Lyon - PSG match is really close to start, the lineups are determined. There are so many players missing for both teams as it seems. And there are important players missing for PSG's attacking line like Messi and Di Maria. But they still have Mbappe and they have an advantage because of that. And Lyon are really a loser team in this season. But they will see this as an opportunity to improve their morale highly. We will see if they will be able to become successful.

The Haaland detail surprised me too. He made an assist at least which can be considered as a contribution too.    I would have expected him to score not to fall behind Lewandowski in the top scorers standings. But the most important thing here is still getting this very valuable win of course. It is really not easy to make this kind of comebacks. Congrats to Dortmund and I hope to see the new victories coming by this one also. Only in this way they can catch up with Bayern Munich.

Actually they would make use of a top striker for the next season. I know that they have Cristiano Ronaldo but he won't be enough for them. Cavani will most probably leave the team and Rashford is better as a winger. As Ronaldo is not playing like in the old days anymore, this could lead to a big scoring problem for the team. And if they want to play bigger than this, they should be looking for a top striker. Maybe they won't be able to sign Haaland as the other teams like Real Madrid, PSG etc. are also in the race. But there are still alternatives of course.

Yeah, Manchester United are still much better now comparing to the Solskjaer's time. Because they were showing an awful performance back then. Rangnick's game plan is better but this is still not good enough for the team considering their recent performance. If he builds the rightest game plan for Manchester United, they can maintain this for a long time and achieve bigger successes too. But on the other hand, Rangnick is their interim manager as he's going to leave the club this summer. After that, Manchester United will need to take the right steps after bringing a new manager.

What an insane comeback by Dortmund! After I saw that Frankfurt got ahead by 2-0, I started thinking like Dortmund would draw with them in all likelihood. When there were twenty minutes to go, I lost most of my hopes for Dortmund. But magically, they made an amazing comeback by scoring three consecutive goals. And they really managed to defeat Frankfurt by 3-2. This is the dedication and determination that I want to see from Dortmund. Now, they are 6 points behind Bayern Munich.

This really seems to be a draw match from my point of view. Maybe Barcelona seemed to be the better performing side in the first half but they are struggling to find the target at the same time. This might lead to Granada's scoring a goal before them. And after that, Barcelona would score the equalizer and the match might end in a draw by 1-1. This is my prediction taking the performances in the first half into account. But I will see if I'm wrong or not.

Who would have thought that Gladbach would be able to get their first win in a match like this after a long break? Of course, there are still at least ten minutes to go. Bayern Munich are trying everything in this half and Gladbach are just trying to resist them. They have done a good work so far. After seeing that Bayern Munich struggle this much, I hope that Gladbach really get this win. Winning against the best team of the league can increase their motivation much more.

Chicago Bulls are the leader in the Eastern Conference right now. They have got the lead from Brooklyn Nets after Nets lost three times in a row. And Chicago Bulls are on a winning streak of eight games which is incredible. I believe that they are close to the nineth straight win as their competitor is Washington Wizards tonight. Wizards are performing not very bright and I don't think that they can resist Bulls here.

It wouldn't be good for Manchester United supporters to rely on Cristiano Ronaldo mostly from now on. And the game plan of the team shouldn't be like this too. Because he is not in the old days anymore. He isn't performing at the same level even though he seems to score still. The most important thing that Manchester United need to do is to build a solid team play. This is Rangnick's responsibility mostly. If he manages to build this, then we will be able to start observing a high-performing Manchester United.