Super Matchday! All GIANTS struggle in their league matches. What happened?

In an exciting day of football, all of these big clubs have suffered a struggling match day. What has happened?

In La Liga, the major title challengers Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico all dropped points while Bayern had a disastrous 5-1 defeat with Boateng sent off in Bundesliga match.

About the Premier League, Liverpool and Man City both came from a goal down to grab all three points in the final stages of a game. 

But Man Utd failed to complete the same task as they lost 1-0 to Bournemouth. Arsenal could not keep their advantage and finished with a 1-1 draw. Only Chelsea earned their 5th straight EPL win.

Here, let's look at what happened to Barcelona, Real Madrid, Man Utd and Bayern.

Levante 3-1 Barcelona

It’s incredible that Valverde is still Barcelona manager. If the utterly ridiculous Roma loss in 2017/18 wasn’t enough of a sign that he wasn’t up to the task, the shameful capitulation at Anfield in 2018/19 was a clear indication.

Both warnings went unheeded, and here we are, 11 games into the league season and Barcelona have already conceded 14 goals and lost 3 times. The defeat to Levante was symptomatic of everything wrong with Valverde.

Barcelona don’t really play like Barcelona away from home. Oh sure, at the Camp Nou they are still supreme. With the home crowd driving them on and a stable of veteran players who know every angle on that giant pitch, Barça can still be Barça.

But when they’re the visitors, when their opponents realise that they’re not playing any quick forwards and have almost zero ability to play in transition yet repeatedly forego possession to exclusively play in transition. Levante went down, but never stopped attacking because they did not fear the Blaugrana.

There will be a tendency to look at the details, the errors made in conceding the goals. That’s a trap. The real problem Barcelona face is that their manager repeatedly sends them out with unadventurous XI’s in unadventurous systems where they play unadventurous football.

And if Barcelona seriously want to return to being a dominant side again then they have to consider whether to keep Valverde or not.

Real Madrid 0-0 Real Betis

With Zidane getting the band back together at Real Madrid, many predicted a return to the glory days of them winning three consecutive UCL. But instead, it feels like one of those really terrible Rolling Stones albums with the band shambling around the stage, a shadow of the all-conquering legends they used to be.

Real Betis have won on their last two trips to the Bernabeu (Barcelona are the only visiting side to have more than two wins at Bernabeu). They know how to win in Spain’s capital, and even though they’re in the relegation zone coach Rubi set them up perfectly to launch an assault on making history. 

Nothing about what Hazard was doing looked planned, or structured. The plan appeared to be just “give it to Eden and hope” because that’s literally what they did. 

The thing is that is always a gamble, obviously Hazard had the talent to turn out Betis’ lights, but then you’re wholly reliant on individual genius and if he’s not fully in the zone, or Rodrygo’s not in the zone, or Benzema isn’t at it, then you don’t score.

Everything was rushed and off-the-cuff. Whilst Betis were harmonious, fully aware of what they were doing and lacking only a touch of skill to turn their tactical dominance into a win, Madrid were utterly discordant. They didn’t even look like latter-day Rolling Stones, to be honest, they looked like wild stallions.

Real Betis had other ideas, however. And just like Bill and Ted learned at their end of their excellent adventure; maybe it’s time Los Blancos really learned how to play? In unison, in harmony, as a team.

Bournemouth 1-0 Man Utd

Man Utd's clash against Bournemouth was their 4th away game in the last 10 days. During this period, they had to travel to Belgrade, Norwich, London and then Bournemouth. Moreover, due to a lack of squad depth, they had to resort to playing the same players in every game.

This continuous travelling and a lack of rest took a toll on the performances of some players against Bournemouth. McTominay, who has been brilliant for Man Utd since the start of this season, was far from his usual best and looked out of sorts against the Cherries. 

Moreover, both Wan-Bissaka and Maguire also seemed to struggle in the game against Bournemouth. All these players have been involved in every game since the international break and look to be in a desperate need of a break.

Man Utd started the game incredibly well, creating a handful of half-chances to score. but they failed to keep the intensity and cooled off a bit. This enable Bournemouth to get back into the game and enjoy more of the ball than they did in the first 10 minutes of the game.

Man Utd have done extremely well against top opposition and struggled against those who are at the bottom of the league this season. The reason for that has been their inability to break opposition down who sit in a low-block. 

The Red Devils have been lacking a player who possesses the ability to find a defence-splitting pass, and the absence of Pogba, who is by-far their most creative player isn’t helping either. 

Moreover, they also lack options off the bench who could provide something different on the pitch. Their inability to play through a low-block has made Man Utd way too predictable to play against and Solskjaer needs to come up with a solution soon.

Frankfurt 5-1 Bayern

The first 10 minutes were even between the two teams with both sides showing some attacking threat. The biggest twist of the game was to come early in this tie though, Boateng's sending off in the 9th minute of the game put the game firmly in Eintracht's grasp.

VAR asked the referee to review the yellow-card decision because the contact Boateng made was outside the box and the official changed his decision to a freekick and sent off Boateng as the last man in Bayern's defence.

Lewandowski now scored 14 goals in 10 games for Bayern in an incredible 10-game scoring run for the Bavarians, he has been the pure definition of unstoppable in Bayern's attack. 

At the other end, Neuer pulled off some absolute blinders to keep the score from becoming more embarrassing. Had Lewandowski scored a couple of the other chances, or Neuer made more saves, it might've been a different game for Bayern, but they had bigger problems on the day.

Having a man sent off so early in the game usually means a reshuffle for any side. It seemed fairly straightforward that Pavard would go into the centre-back pairing with Alaba and Kimmich would resume duties on the right. 

With Kimmich moving to right-back, Thiago was left to cope alone in midfield behind Muller, Gnabry and Coutinho. Despite Lewandowski coming deep to help out on many instances, Bayern failed more often than not to create much playing through the middle.

Kovac could've added Martinez to the mix earlier to provide a base from which to work, but he chose to act (or not to act) with an arrogance that Bayern could potentially outscore their opposition even with one player fewer than the opposition. A decision that played a big role in a humbling defeat.