Rice, and everyone else, looking to Champions League

The Independent’s football newsletter [View in browser]( [The Independent]( September 17, 2021 [The Independent]( Reading the Game Written by Miguel Delaney Rice, and everyone else, looking to Champions League [Harry Kane]( Declan Rice is already facing a bit of good-natured chiding about this Sunday’s match between West Ham United and Manchester United. That is because so many people who know the 22-year-old are talking about it as if it is a formality. Rice would have liked the deal to go through this summer, but the £100m price that West Ham set meant it was too high for a summer when United were prioritising Jadon Sancho. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer doesn’t feel he still needs Rice - or a similar player - and currently has him as a top priority for next summer. A feature of all of United’s games so far has been how easily they’ve been cut open at the back of midfield. Hey, go for Jude At the same time, more and more clubs are wondering whether the English midfielder they should really be spending £100m on is Jude Bellingham. It’s just that might be too low even within a year. Most top clubs in Europe already rated the 18-year-old, but the rapid speed of his development is making more and more take note. It was hard not to from that Champions League performance away to Besiktas. They’re already realising he represents the future for someone. If you get in early enough, that could be well over a decade. Dortmund equally know just what an asset they’ve got, and you can expect the very same approach as with Jadon Sancho and Erling Haaland. Bellingham is going to be the next English player, though, that everyone is in a frenzy over. Continental shift On that note, how refreshing would it be for a young Borussia Dortmund side to take the Champions League by storm, with players like Haaland and Bellingham ripping it up? It has been said for years but they do have a bright young coach in Marco Rose now - if still not a defence. It was a good Champions League in that regard, it must be said. The trepidation going into the modern group stage is that all of the super clubs win early to immediately remove any jeopardy, as that list of potential winners gets narrower and narrower. That didn’t happen here. Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain are instead under immediate pressure, all the more so because of the two star signings they’ve made. It means there is suddenly a lot more on PSG v Manchester City in the next round of matches, because the French club - or, more pertinently, Mauricio Pochettino and his staff - need a response. The quality of games was also superb, headed by Liverpool 3-2 Milan. Liverpool also needed that given the tightness of the group. The hope is this continues right through, and we see something more like the 1990s. Super pettiness Barcelona and Real Madrid were involved in two of the more high-profile games from this week’s Champions League, but you wouldn’t think it looking at Uefa’s website. They certainly don’t appear in any pictures. Sources say that the governing body are so keen to make an example of the remaining “Super League three” that their prominence will be played down at every turn. More than a club, more than a crisis To watch Barcelona against Bayern Munich, you would have thought this was a mid-level Spanish club - like when a Celta Vigo occasionally qualifies for the Champions League - rather than one of the greatest names in European football. They were simply destroyed. It was a 3-0 that could have been another 8-2. That is no exaggeration. The oddity is that Barca do still actually have a good side, despite some perceptions. Their midfield is world-class. Sergio Busquets, Pedri and Frenkie De Jong could rival anyone in the world. The specific problem, however, is that they are in what some football people call a “negative spiral”. The wrong kind of momentum has taken over the club, no matter how good the team is. Everyone sees them as vulnerable. There is a long way to drop yet. This could be a very uncomfortable Champions League group. Top stories [Why a World Cup every two years is bad for players]( [How do you beat Chelsea? Tottenham next to try and find a weakness in Thomas Tuchel’s formidable Blues]( Miguel's Dispatches We’re not sure if you’d call this a first-world problem, but it’s certainly a novel one. A low-key scourge of journalists in the last few years has been… lawnmowers. With Covid restrictions still applying inside most grounds, that means we still have to do press conferences on zoom in our media seats overlooking the pitch. They just happen to coincidence with the spell when the groundsmen are going over the grass with lawnmowers. It’s almost impossible to hear what’s said - although that fortunately applies to some of the swearing from journalists as it happens. Quote of the day “First and foremost, it’s one of the few Instagram posts I love because if he sends that already then it shows he has not that much pain anymore, that’s great news.” Jurgen Klopp on Harvey Elliott's post after his ankle injury Reading the game quiz Nine players have appeared for both West Ham United and Manchester United in the Premier League era. Name them. (Last week's answers: Louis Saha 7, Diego Forlan 8, Ryan Giggs 8, Paul Scholes 14, Ruud van Nistelrooy 30) Essential reading [La Liga’s allure and star quality diminishes as bid for Champions League glory restarts]( [Jack Grealish and the Champions League is already a winning match]( If you can spare a minute we’d love your [feedback]( on our newsletters. 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