5 things we learnt from Matchday 3 fixtures

Steve Dede 23:47 - 18 October 2017

These are five things we learnt from games played in the Matchday three of this season's Champions League.

Another Champions League week done and dusted after a couple of interesting games in the matchday three of the group stages.

We take a look at five things we learnt from matchday three.

1. English clubs have improved

Still early days but it seems English sides will have a huge impact in this season’s Champions League campaign. Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham are off to a great start.

Tottenham impressed at the Bernabéu, holding reigning champions Real Madrid to a 1-1 draw, which shows how improved they are this season. No English winner in the Champions League since 2012, is this their year? time will tell.

2. Conte still has Champions League blues

Four league titles in his last four seasons in club football, Antonio Conte is now rightly recognised as one of the best managers in the world. Conte and Juventus dominated Italian football for the three years he stayed at the club and shockingly failed to win the Coppa Italia.

His Juventus team also failed to win the Champions League or even challenge properly and could only manage to get to the quarter-final of Euro 2016 with Italy.

Conte clearly has a problem with club competitions and the 3-3 home draw against Roma shows he is not over his cup blues.

Maybe they are just out of form, maybe there is something about club competition that Conte hasn't figured out yet, Just maybe, time again will tell.

3. Paris Saint-Germain are favourites

If the signing of Neymar and Kylian Mbappé did not make them favourites for the Champions League title this season, the boisterous manner of their wins so far makes them one. A 5-0 win over Celtic, they beat Bayern Munich 3-0 and thrashed Anderlecht 4-0 on Matchday three, watch out everyone.

4. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo domination continues

Messi and Ronaldo have dominated football in the past decade and it looks like they might continue to do that. Ronaldo’s goal against Tottenham took his Champions League goal tally to 109 while Messi scored in Barcelona’s 3-1 win over Olympiacos to become the second player to reach 100 goals in UEFA club competition. The domination continues.

5. Maribor not enough for the Champions League

All blame on Hapoel Be'er Sheva F.C. who Maribor beat in the play-off to progress to the group stage of the Champions League. Maybe the club from Israel would have been a better challenger.

But Maribor have been very poor so far and their 7-0 loss at home to Liverpool is nothing but disgraceful. Not Champions League quality in any way.

Champions League matchday three results

Qarabag FK 0 Vs Atlético Madrid 0

Anderlecht 0 Vs Paris Saint-Germain 4