Key events
GOAL! Portsmouth 2-2 Watford (Segecic 79)
Segecic has been so impressive for Pompey since his move from the A-League and the Australian has equalised for the home side, ending a scrappy move with a fierce drive which caught Selvik cold at the near post! Potentially a very big goal down at the bottom of the Championship.
GOALS! Millwall 0-4 Coventry
Ellis Simms gave Coventry a 3-0 lead after pouncing on a rebound off the bar, while Kaine Kesler-Hayden’s deflected finish – his first for Cov following his £3.5m move from Aston Villa – has made it 4-0! Frank Lampard is doing an amazing job with the Sky Blues.
GOALS! Bayer Leverkusen 1-1 PSV
Two quick-fire goals to tell you about in Germany. It was the home side that took the lead through teenager Kofane after a dismal defensive mix up. But PSV have just drawn level through Saibari, who has curled a beautiful finish into the far corner.
“Noteworthy that a number of British players are playing prominent roles for non-British teams across tonight’s matches,” emails Edward Ricketts. “Burgess, Jobe Bellingham, McTominay, Rashford, Dier – looks like a greater adventurousness these days in players finding opportunities abroad, or was this always the case (obviously we’re not talking of a mass exodus here)? And Carney Chukwuemeka!”
Rashford is playing out of his skin for Barcelona. He has just nutmegged Warren Zaïre-Emery and put Barcola on his arse. Rashford is frightening when he wants to be. There is increasingly an argument that he should be England’s left winger.
GOAL! Napoli 1-1 Sporting (Suárez 62 pen)
Politano dangles a clumsy leg, Maximiliano Araújo took a tumble in the box and from the penalty spot, Sporting half-time sub Luis Suárez sent the 6ft7in Milinkovic-Savic the wrong way from 12 yards.
GOAL! Borussia Dortmund 2-1 Athletic Bilbao (Guruzeta 61)
A terrible mix-up between Waldemar Anton and Niklas Süle gives Gorka Guruzeta an easy finish from just six yards out! Athletic Club are back in this! Game on!
GOAL! Villarreal 1-2 Juventus (Conceição 56)
One-nil down at half-time, Juventus now lead! Parejo, who normally never gives the ball away, gifts possession to Francisco Conceição and the Portuguese drives straight through the middle of Villarreal before finishes past Tenas. Great goal!
A correction! A described Rocco Vata as a ‘Scot’ earlier. He is a Republic of Ireland international!
“Despite Rocco Vata being the son of former Albanian captain Rudi Vata and being born and raised in Scotland with an Scottish mother, he is actually an Irish international,” emails John Brennan. “We are a little sensitive about this kind of stuff considering our experiences with other players who are qualified for more than one nation.”
This is probably not a good time to tell you that Declan Rice has just come on for Arsenal.
GOAL! Millwall 0-2 Coventry (Wright 66 pen)
Coventry score their 20th goal of the season from the penalty spot. Haji Wright scoring from 12 yards, his second of the game and eighth of the season. The USMNT striker is on fire.
An email from Colum Fordham:
“Here in Naples, the focus, strangely, is on Napoli-Benfica at the Maradona. De Bruyne got a lot of stick for his performance against Inter on Sunday, despite a well-taken penalty and some insidious corners. But I was delighted to seem him ride off a tackle or two and dribble through three Sporting Lisbon players to set up a great finish from another former Man Utd reject Hojlund who has suddenly turned into a star forward.”
GOAL! Villarreal 1-1 Juventus (Gatti 50)
Somebody sound the Bicycle Kick Klaxon! PLEASE SOMEONE SOUND THE JUVENTUS-BICYCLE-KICK KLAXON! Up from the back, centre-back Federico Gatti has improvised brilliantly in reacting to a near-post flick on, scissor-kicking a finish into the corner. Arnau Tenas should probably do better in the Villarreal but take nothing away from Gatti, that was a sensational strike. There is a quick check by VAR for dangerous play, with Gatti swiping his bicycle kick around head height, but the goal stands!
GOAL! Borussia Dortmund 2-0 Athletic Bilbao (Chukwuemeka 50)
Former Chelsea midfielder Chukwuemeka gets his first Champions League goal, squeezing in a left-footed finish just inside the near post. Keeper (Unai Simón, of all people!) should not be beaten there, etc, so on.
GOAL! Portsmouth 1-2 Watford (Rocco Vata 56)
Watford has turned this around completely! Rocco Vata has only been on since half-time but now he has a goal to go with his assist! It’s an ugly goal in truth, bundling home a rebound, but the Scot won’t care one bit!
Peeeeeeeep!
We’re back underway in all the 8pm BST kick-offs.
Half-time scores
I’m fairly sure the only goal I have missed in my commentary is Watford’s equaliser at Portsmouth. That was scored by Imran Louza after good work from former Celtic winger Rocco Vata down the left. It’s 1-1 there and that game has just kicked off for the second half. Millwall 0-1 Coventry and Norwich 0-1 West Brom all has resumed.
GOAL! Monaco 1-2 Manchester City (Haaland 44)
Haaland has barely had a kick, yet he has scored two superb goals. This one is even better than his first: Nico O’Reilly lofts a hopeful cross into the box with no pace, but Haaland completely bullies his marker (former Southampton defender Mohammed Salisu, who is no pushover) and powerfully nods a header into the corner. How on earth did he create that much power from such a weak cross?! Vintage centre-forward play. The sort of goal Dixie Dean would be proud of.
GOAL! Napoli 1-0 Sporting (Højlund 36)
We spoke about the Højlund-De Bruyne link up, and the two have combined brilliantly for Napoli’s opening goal! From the edge of their own area, Napoli pounce: De Bruyne rolling back the years, powerfully gliding past two before laying on an inch-perfect through ball. Højlund shows great pace to latch onto the ball, and nutmegs Rui Silva with the finish. Diego Armando Maradona Stadium erupts!
GOAL! Barcelona 1-1 PSG (Mayulu 38)
Mayulu equalises for PSG in Barcelona! This is all down to Nuno Mendes, surely the best left-back on the planet, who streams clear of Koundé down PSG’s left. Nuno Mendes checks, and picks a perfect pass to Mayulu, who beats Cubarsí to the ball, takes a touch and finishes with aplomb past Szczesny. Great finish from the teenager!
Monaco 1-1 Manchester City
30 min: With his weaker right foot, Phil Foden has rattled the underside of the bar for City, who are pushing to take the lead again. The ball bounced just the wrong side of the goalline, from City’s perspective.
A word, please, for Dortmund’s kits this season. The home has a retro feel, somewhere between their 90s kits and the Manchester United 2000s home shirt, which might have something to do with the Vodafone sponsor.
The away kit, which Dortmund played in at the weekend, is also delicious.
GOAL! Borussia Dortmund 1-0 Athletic Bilbao (Svensson 28)
Adeyemi has been ridiculously good this season and he pops up with another assist here, using his pace to zoom past his marker and cross to Svensson at the back stick. The Swede makes no mistake.
Will Unwin
Re the crowd at Monaco, another problem I believe is that they have ripped some seats out because they are finally going to make the ground red and white. This means that two big sections are closed.
GOAL! Millwall 0-1 Coventry (Wright 29)
Coventry are absolutely flying under Frank Lampard. The Sky Blues are the top scorers in the Championship this season by a distance and now have their 19th goal of the season through Haji Wright, who has seven of his own, tapping in at the back post after good work by Brandon Thomas-Asante. For context, the next biggest scorers in the Championship are Bristol City, who have five fewer with 14.
GOAL! Barcelona 1-0 PSG (Ferran Torres 20)
After Vitinha gives the ball away in midfield, PSG are punished! It’s a brilliant, sweeping counter attack. Lamine Yamal feeding Pedri, Pedri feeding Rashford on the left and an brilliant, incisive pass to the back post, where Ferran Torres slides in and sidefoots a finish past Chevalier.
GOAL! Monaco 1-1 Manchester City (Teze 18)
Monaco draw level after Teze bends a pearler into the top corner from 25 yards out! It had to be some shot to beat Donnarumma from there, and it was!
GOAL! Villarreal 1-0 Juventus (Mikautadze 18)
The Georgian, who was so good at Euro 2024, gives the Yellow Submarine the lead! Parejo, who is still doing bits in 2025, threads a through ball through to Mikautadze. There is an initial tackle, but Pépé is there in support and he squares the ball to Mikautadze again, who makes no mistake from eight yards.
GOAL! Monaco 0-1 Manchester City (Haaland 15)
Gvardiol steps into midfield, has time to pick a pass and floats a perfect pass into the path of Haaland. It’s an awkward bouncing ball for the striker, but no matter. The Norwegian simply lifts it over Kohn and into the net. That looked so easy, but that was an elite finish. And despite 15 minutes being played, that was Haaland’s first touch!
There’s been a goal at Arsenal, but I’ll let John Brewin tell you all about that in our dedicated liveblog.
GOAL! Norwich 0-1 West Brom (Maja 20)
After Samuel Iling-Junior made a great dash to the byline down the right, his cutback causes chaos in the box, pinballing around before Josh Maja pings a shot into the bottom corner from around the penalty spot.
Julien Laurens, a French pundit on TNT Sport, has just been asked about why the stands are so empty at Monaco’s stadium, Stade Louis II. He claims that only 4,000 people live in Monaco during winter, so that goes some way to explaining why the team struggle so much with attracting fans. Four thousand!
Bayer Leverkusen 0-0 PSV – goal disallowed for PSV!
5 min: Ivan Perisic ghosted in at the back post for PSV and nodded past Mark Flekken, but the Croatian was just adjudged to be offside. Replays show he was half a yard off.
Barcelona 0-0 PSG
3 min: Lamine Yamal, in his first start for Barcelona since August, has just doing a perfect Zidane turn/roulette to skip away from two PSG markers. Absolutely outrageous skill.
Peeeeeep peeeeeeep!
Six Champions League games and one Championship match are (also) underway!
GOAL! Portsmouth 1-0 Watford (Yang Min-hyeok 5)
In what already feels like a big match between two sides likely to fight it out at the bottom of the Championship table, Tottenham loanee Yang Min-hyeok has opened the scoring for Pompey! After a long throw was launched into the box, the ball broke loose and Yang leathered it into the far corner from around just inside the 18-yard box. Nice finish.
Three Championship games are underway!
Three of the Championship matches are 7.45pm GMT kick-offs: Millwall v Coventry, Norwich v West Brom and Portsmouth v Watford. Unhelpfully, QPR v Oxford United is a 8pm kick-off.
This is the league table, as things stand before kick-off.
Speaking of Newcastle United, they have just wrapped up a comprehensive 4-0 win over Union Saint-Gilloise.
Away victories in the Champions League are not easy over any opponent – just as Spurs and Liverpool – but that will be a massive boost for Newcastle after their opening defeat to Barcelona. And it will do wonders for their goal difference, which is very important in the league phase. Remember Manchester City, Sporting and Club Brugge only qualified for the knockout play-off on goal difference.
Very interesting that Robert Lewandowski has been left on the Barcelona bench to face PSG – particularly because he has scored twice in La Liga in the last week, including the winner over Real Sociedad on Sunday. Hansi Flick has preferred Ferran Torres and Marcus Rashford preferred – the latter, of course, scored both goals for Barça in their Champions League opener at Newcastle, a 2-1 win.
If you are wondering why Paul Pogba isn’t in the Monaco squad to face City, it’s because he is still building up his fitness since his summer move. Monaco’s club’s general director, Thiago Scuro said in July that they “expect a three-month process” in terms of getting fit, and that seems to be on track. This week, prior to City’s visit, Monaco manager Adi Hütter confirmed the club were “following his plan. We expected him maybe for the game against Nice [on Sunday] in the squad, but I think we have to postpone it for the game against Angers [on 18 October] maybe.
“At the moment he’s doing more of the warming up, and also in small-sided games. Now he’s increasing a lot, he’s doing well at the moment, and I hope after the national team break he can be a part of the squad.”
Here’s a bit of background to Pogba’s move to Monaco, in case you are catching up.
Will Unwin
It is a warm night in Monaco, a place Pep Guardiola does not remember fondly from his first Champions League campaign as Manchester City head coach. It was the Ligue 1 side that ended that European tour. Monaco had a team including Kylian Mbappé, Bernardo Silva and Fabinho, to name a few. The current crop of Monaco stars are far less bright and Adi Hutter’s problems are exacerbated by an array of injury problems, which means the midfield is down to its bare bones.
After beating Napoli in their opening fixture, Guardiola will see this as the perfect chance to double their point count and make an important step towards qualifying for the knockout stages. John Stones is brought into the team at right-back as the continuous rotation in that position keeps the rest of the defence and goalkeeper interested. After a disappointing European campaign last time, Guardiola cannot afford any slip ups. Considering the gap in quality between the two starting lineups, anything other than a City win would be a huge shock.
Imagine being Rasmus Højlund right now. Rather than warming the Manchester United bench, reeling from another defeat at Brentford and wincing at the thought of facing Sunderland this weekend, he is living in Naples, starting in the Champions League with Kevin De Bruyne on hand to provide assists. Oh, and he’s still earning that Premier League coin. Oooof.
Champions League team news
Monaco v Manchester City
Monaco: Kohn, Kehrer, Dier, Salisu, Vanderson, Teze, Coulibaly, Diatta, Akliouche, Fati, Balogun.
Subs: Ouattara, Cabral, Ilenikhena, Minamino, Idumbo-Muzambo, Biereth, Henrique, Lienard, Hradecky.
Man City: Donnarumma, Stones, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly, Rodri, Foden, Silva, Reijnders, Doku, Haaland. Subs: Lewis, Mukasa, Bobb, Matheus Luiz, Savio, Gonzalez, Kovacic, Ake, Trafford, Bettinelli.
Barcelona v PSG
Barcelona: Szczesny, Kounde, Eric Garcia, Cubarsi, Gerard, De Jong, Gonzalez, Yamal, Olmo, Rashford, Torres.
Subs: Kochen, Aller, Balde, Araujo, Lewandowski, Christensen, Casado, Bernal, Torrents, Dro Fernandez, Bardghji, Toni Fernandez.
PSG: Chevalier, Hakimi, Zabarnyi, Pacho, Nuno Mendes, Fabian, Vitinha, Neves, Mbaye, Mayulu, Barcola.
Subs: Safonov, Marin, Lucas Beraldo, Goncalo Ramos, Lee, Hernandez, Zaire Emery, Jangeal, Ndjantou.
Bayer Leverkusen v PSV
Bayer Leverkusen: Flekken, Quansah, Bade, Tapsoba, Tape, Garcia, Fernandez, Grimaldo, Tillman, Poku, Kofane.
Subs: Blaswich, Lomb, Echeverri, Arthur, Ben Seghir, Maza, Belocian,
Izekor.
PSV: Kovar, Junior, Obispo, Gasiorowski, Saleh-Eddine, Saibari, Schouten, Veerman, Man, Til, Perisic.
Subs: Olij, Schiks, Flamingo, Wanner, Driouech, Bajraktarevic, Fernandez, Nagalo, Van Duiven.
Borussia Dortmund v Athletic Bilbao
Borussia Dortmund: Kobel, Sule, Anton, Bensebaini, Ryerson, Sabitzer, Chukwuemeka, Svensson, Adeyemi, Bellingham, Guirassy.
Subs: Meyer, Yan Couto, Schlotterbeck, Nmecha, Brandt, Gross, Beier, Silva.
Athletic Bilbao: Simon, Gorosabel, Paredes, Vivian, Lekue,
Jauregizar, Rego, Inaki Williams, Navarro, Gomez, Sannadi.
Subs: Santos, Padilla, Sancet, Guruzeta, Areso, Laporte, Ruiz de Galarreta, Yuri, Boiro, Serrano, Perez, Sanchez.
Villarreal v Juventus
Villarreal: Tenas, Mourino, Marin, Veiga, Pedraza, Comesana, Parejo, Gueye, Pepe, Mikautadze, Buchanan. Subs: Junior, Conde, Altimira, Akhomach, Partey, Moleiro, Oluwaseyi, Cardona.
Juventus: Perin, Kalulu Kyatengwa, Gatti, Kelly, Cambiaso, McKennie, Locatelli, Cabal, Koopmeiners, Yildiz, David.
Subs: Di Gregorio, Pinsoglio, Francisco Conceicao, Vlahovic, Zhegrova, Adzic, Kostic, Openda, Rugani, Joao Mario.
Napoli v Sporting
Napoli: Milinkovic-Savic, Spinazzola, Juan Jesus, Beukema, Gutierrez, Lobotka, Politano, Anguissa, De Bruyne, McTominay, Hojlund.
Subs: Meret, Ferrante, Gilmour, Neres, Olivera, Elmas, Vergara, Lucca, Ambrosino, Lang.
Sporting: Rui Silva, Fresneda, Quaresma, Inacio, Araujo, Hjulmand, Simoes, Catamo, Trincao, Quenda, Ioannidis.
Subs: Virginia, Matheus Reis, Morita, Debast, Goncalves, Vagiannidis, Kochorashvili, Diomande, Alisson Santos, Ribeiro, Ricardo Mangas, Suarez.
Preamble
Hello world!
Who says you can’t have a clockwatch that straddles both Europe’s finest club competition … and the Champions League. Boom, boom! We’ll be here all night (or around 11pm BST) with that sort of hollow humour. Come on in, the water is lukewarm.
That’s right, as well as four Championship fixtures, there is the small matter of Barcelona v PSG, Monaco v Manchester City and much, much more. Here is the full list of games we will be attempting to cover, although it should probably be flagged not equally. Not all matches are created as such.
We’ll have the team news shortly. But while you wait, please get stuck into these other liveblogs. Newcastle, playing in the earlier kick-off, are winning in Belgium.
And we have a dedicated liveblog to Arsenal v Olympiakos (8pm BST kick-off), which you can see right here.
