Newcastle United, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Arsenal all played their first Champions League Group Stage matches this week. We review how they got on.
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00:00 The Champions League has returned for another season. Four English clubs have made their
00:04 bows in the first game week of matches in the group stages. We'll start where our background
00:10 shows at the San Siro, where Newcastle United made their 20-year return to the Champions League,
00:16 20 years away from the competition. They faced up against AC Milan at the San Siro.
00:21 And what an occasion, a 0-0 draw for Newcastle after that amount of time away from the competition
00:28 against one of Europe's elite sides. It's a pretty good point away to start off their campaign.
00:34 Of course, as well, on Tuesday, Man City, the defending champions of the Champions League,
00:49 returned to the competition. They were up at home against Red Star Belgrade.
00:55 And after a bit of a nervy start, going a goal behind, not ideal for the defending champions,
01:00 it ended up being quite a comfortable evening, would you say?
01:02 Yeah, really comfortable in the end. Obviously, they had that slight, slight scare. I spoke to
01:08 Michael Plant, whether Man City could go on to win the Champions League again. So,
01:13 let's see what Michael said.
01:15 You would be a brave man to bet against them, I think. They are, look, they are the best team in
01:19 Europe. They are the best team in the world. I don't think anyone doubts that. I just think that
01:22 over a Champions League group season, the best team doesn't always necessarily win,
01:30 given how knockout football works. I think that, I mean, what's really interesting is Pep Guardiola
01:35 is clearly, clearly thinking about this second Champions League. I mean, that's the way his mind
01:40 works. He's just got through the first and he's already thinking about the second one.
01:43 Going across the city of Manchester to the red side, the Red Devils of Manchester United were
01:47 away at Harry Kane's Bayern Munich. And what a game that was, 4-3. Bayern Munich, I think for
01:55 the most part, were in total control of that game and probably could have won by a bit more of a
01:59 margin. But fair play to Man United, they showed resilience to even get themselves into a
02:03 respectable position in that match at times, coming back on a couple of occasions and being
02:07 within only a goal of levelling things up. But things still aren't quite right under Eric Ten Hag,
02:13 are they? No, they're not. And they haven't started incredibly to this season. There's
02:18 been a lot of shake-up. They've lost so many key players in such a short space of time. So,
02:25 it's almost as if Ten Hag's had to really scrap his tactical ideas. Arsenal making their return
02:30 to the Champions League after a couple of seasons away. And they returned with quite an emphatic
02:34 win against PSV Eindhoven, 4-0. The Gunners meant business, didn't they? Yeah, they do. And
02:41 obviously, they've got big standards to live up to. They had a magnificent season last season,
02:46 disappointing to not leave the season with any trophies. We've seen them over the last few years
02:52 be poor and still win an FA Cup or still win a trophy. And they've just got to ensure that they
02:58 are keeping up the standards because, as we've said, there are some incredible teams this year,
03:03 again in Europe.