Football Daily | Existential angst stalks the Premier League but does it mean anything?

. UK edition

Pedro Porro looks stunned as Tottenham head out of the Champions League
Pedro Porro and Tottenham were winners against Atlético but it was not enough. Photograph: Marc Atkins/Getty Images

In today’s Football Daily: Tottenham and Newcastle crash out, Erling Haaland gets his chess on and a trip to 2000-era Arsenal

TOO MUCH PERSPECTIVE

Another night in Bigger Cup and the hopes and dreams of another two teams from The Best League In The World™ were brought to an end in varying degrees of ignominy. Of the six teams that advanced to this season’s Round of Arsenal, only two (including Arsenal) made it into the quarter-finals. This state of affairs has prompted all manner of existential angst for assorted Premier League cheerleaders. Never mind the fact that Barcelona are simply much better than Newcastle, or that Spurs have been complete bobbins for the best part of three seasons, the media needs a narrative. Thus, the mass exodus of English top-flight clubs from the last 16 must mean something. And so it has come to pass that an army of chin-stroking statto types who in previous cycles have mused that the likes of Paris Saint-Germain couldn’t hack it in Bigger Cup because their domestic league isn’t competitive enough, have now decided the reason so many Premier League sides hit the bricks is because the English top flight is just too darned competitive.

While Newcastle more than held their own against Barça for the opening three halves of their tie, their latest Bigger Cup campaign came disastrously unstuck in the fourth. Having failed to capitalise on an uncharacteristically diabolical Barcelona performance at St James’ Park, Eddie Howe’s team came from behind twice at Camp Nou before conceding a penalty on the stroke of half-time. At that point, the wheels didn’t so much come off as spontaneously liquefy, regroup T-2000-style into a sentient puddle and mail a Get Well Soon card to the chassis from a beach in Ibiza. “Our performance dropped – that was very clear,” parped Howe in his postmortem of a 7-2 humiliation. “The first four goals you can’t concede. To concede two from regulation set-plays, from one free-kick and one corner, I can’t be impressed.” With their mackem mates from Sunderland due in Toon on Sunday, Howe and his players will have little time to dwell on this bruising defeat if they are avoid extending their winless run in Wear-Tyne league derbies to an inglorious 11 games.

With a massive six-pointer against Nottingham Forest looming at the weekend, Tottenham also exited Bigger Cup, albeit with their players having finally notched up their first win under Igor Tudor at the sixth time of asking. While it would be something of an exaggeration to say they went out of Bigger Cup with their heads held high, they at least saw off largely uninterested opposition without shipping three goals and a goalkeeper inside the opening 17 minutes. Small steps, etc and so on. “Now, every game is a final for us,” said Xavi Simons, who put in one of his better performances in a Spurs shirt to help his side exit the competition with a modicum of dignity. “Not only Sunday, but it starts on Sunday and we have to keep this momentum.”

Following last Sunday’s disappointing draw against Spurs, Simons’ compatriot Arne Slot will also be hoping his team can build on the momentum of the absolute hiding they dished out to Galatasaray at Anfield on Wednesday night to help put speculation about his future to bed. Liverpool scored four, missed a penalty, had two goals disallowed and missed several glorious chances in a match Hugo Ekitiké said they “could have won 10-0”. Any chance Gala had of laying a glove on their hosts evaporated when Victor Osimhen was forced off with a fractured arm, while his replacement Noa Lang sliced his thumb open in a gruesome freak accident involving an advertising hoarding. Mercifully, the Dutchman has since undergone surgery and been spotted cheerfully posing for a selfie with his nurses while laughing off the incident by declaring “sh1t happens”. It certainly does.

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Join Daniel Harris from 5.45pm GMT for hot Bigger Vase minute-by-minute updates from Midtjylland 1-1 Nottingham Forest (agg: 2-1), while Scott Murray is on deck for Aston Villa 3-0 Lille (agg: 4-0) at 8pm.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“You try to press a player, but the ball is already with someone else. After a while, you’re just running … You don’t even know who you’re chasing” – Newcastle’s Joelinton describes the brain-melting challenge of playing in midfield against a rampant Barcelona.

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