The final round of the Champions League group stage is now behind us. When it comes to the English representatives in this competition, all four clubs have secured progress. Liverpool, Arsenal, and Aston Villa are going directly to the Round of 16, while City will have to work hard to reach that stage. Since Liverpool and Arsenal had already secured their places in the top 8 before this round (Liverpool mathematically confirmed it, while Arsenal’s chances of elimination were close to miraculous), the real surprise of the group stage is probably the imperative for victory that Pep Guardiola’s team faced before their match against Club Brugge.UCL: City are saved! Arsenal win and Reds suffer their first loss in ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ halvesIn the end, the Blues managed to come out as winners, even though they had reason to worry after Brugge’s opening goal. This was reflected in the Spanish coach’s comments after the hard-earned victory, where he spoke about the situation on the field, as well as the deficit his English team had to overcome.”In the second half we lifted our soul and our hearts were free. For today we are in the next round, that’s good. The first half was so academic, we didn’t have the spark to do it against a team that defends really well. It was good because we came out very well. We knew we needed to step up. In the second half, we showed great character to win and go through.The crowd was behind us so amazing atmosphere today. t was important because we knew we are here to go through, we have a good team and we came back from 1-0 down. We know we are a great team.” The tension is building for Pep Guardiola as City still find themselves goalless against Club Brugge after 30 minutes 😩 pic.twitter.com/UVsJfhhp2e— Pubity Sport (@pubitysport) January 29, 2025 In the end, Guardiola also reflected on the fact that in the upcoming play-in round, his team will have to face the winner of the match between two giants—Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.”Going to Bayern Munich or Real Madrid will be really tough but it’s in two weeks and in two weeks we have a few players back, the new signings back, so hopefully we can do two good games”.Liverpool are just too good 🔥 pic.twitter.com/uJEaRGZtso— Premier League India (@PLforIndia) January 29, 2025 On the other hand, the coach who didn’t have to worry about the standings at all was Arne Slot. The Dutch strategist had already shown before the match that he was entering the encounter with PSV without stress, as he rested key players like Mohamed Salah, Luis Díaz, Dominik Szoboszlai and others. In such a lineup, Federico Chiesa had the chance to play the entire match, and he was also a topic of conversation during the post-match conference.”He got a knock with the penalty so that took him a few minutes before he got going again. But I think it’s been seven, eight or nine months ago – maybe even longer, I don’t know exactly – since he played 90. It’s the same for Jayden Danns, it was the same for James McConnell. So, we had quite a lot of players that were not used to playing so many minutes in the last six or seven months. So it’s especially for them also important that they make these 90 minutes and were able to keep competing during 90 minutes.”Chiesa talking about Liverpool and Anfield. pic.twitter.com/6vJUC247Ko— . (@ChiesaLFC) January 29, 2025 Speaking about first place in the table, he added: “I don’t know if it’s a big achievement, but it is a good achievement to end up top of this league. I have said many times it is so hard to judge a league table after eight games, let alone if all the teams play different opponents. It doesn’t tell me much, to be honest, because some teams have faced easier opponents than others. It’s always nice if there’s a new format that you end up No.1, but it doesn’t give us any assurances for the next round because if I now check the league table and I see the four teams we can face and one of them is one you’re hoping not to face if you end up first in a group like this”.Also, there was no reason for excessive worry for Arsenal’s manager, Mikel Arteta, either. His team needed only a point against Girona away in the final round to secure direct qualification to the Round of 16. In any case, the Gunners managed to win after a comeback (2-1), freeing themselves from any concerns about advancing further. It seems that the Spaniard, of all the mentioned coaches, spoke the least about the match itself, instead reflecting on the performance of Ethan Nwaneri, who had a solid display and scored his first goal for Arsenal in the Champions League.💬 “That was exactly what we wanted, to finish winning and with a good taste.”Mikel Arteta was pleased with the way we finished our Champions League group stage exploits 👇— Arsenal (@Arsenal) January 29, 2025 “That’s what we love about him, he’s willing to take the initiative to make things happen. He’s very aggressive when he’s got the ball and so confident because before that he had another action, a very similar one, he made the right choice, he went for it, he has the capacity to finish from every angle basically and it was a very important goal”.About potential opponents, he said: “Let’s see. We love watching Champions League matches. We’re going to have the privilege to be sitting at home and analysing and watching who we can face afterwards. So, pretty good at the moment. Things are going well”.UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE – MATCHDAY 8Wednesday Aston Villa – Celtic 4-2 (2-2)/Rogers 3, 5, 90+1, Watkins 61 – Idah 36, 38/Barcelona – Atalanta 2-2 (0-0)/Yamal 47, Araujo 73 – Ederson 67, Pasalic 80/Bayern – Slovan B. 3-1 (1-0)/Muller 8, Kane 63, Coman 84 – Tolic 90/Brest – Real Madrid 0-3 (0-1)/Rodrygo 27, 78, Bellingham 57/Dinamo Zagreb – Milan 2-1 (1-0)/Baturina 19, Pjaca 60 – Pulisic 53/Dortmund – Shakhtar 3-1 (2-0)/Guirassy 17, 44, Bensebaini 79 – Gomes 50/Girona – Arsenal 1-2 (1-2)/Danjuma 28 – Jorginho 38 pen, Nwaneri 42/Inter – Monaco 3-0 (2-0)/Martinez 3 pen, 16, 67/Juventus – Benfica 0-2 (0-1)/Pavlidis 17, Kokcu 81/Leverkusen – Sparta Praha 2-0 (1-0)/Wirtz 32, Tella 64/Lille – Feyenoord 6-1 (2-1)/Sahraoui 5, Trauner 39 og, Gomes 57, David 74, Haraldsson 76, Cabella 80 – Gimenez 14/Man.City – Club Brugge 3-1 (0-1)/Kovacic 53, Ordonez 62 og, Savinho 77 – Onyedika 45/PSV – Liverpool 3-2 (3-2)/Bakayoko 35, Saibari 45, Pepi 45+6 – Gakpo 27 pen, Elliott 40/Salzburg – Atl.Madrid 1-4 (0-3)/Daghim 90+1 – Simeone 5, Griezmann 13, 45+1, Llorente 64/Sporting – Bologna 1-1 (0-1)/Harder 77 – Pobega 21/Sturm – RB Leipzig 1-0 (1-0)/Malic 42/Stuttgart – PSG 1-4 (0-3)/Fuhrich 78 – Barcola 6, Dembele 19, 35, 54/Young Boys – Crvena zvezda 0-1 (0-0)/Kanga 69/
