The Euro XI: Chelsea's Estevao makes title race interesting, Arsenal's Bukayo Saka rounds into form and Hansi Flick weakly defends woeful Barcelona performance

It was always going to be a tricky weekend for Liverpool. The Reds had lost two in a row going into their match at Chelsea. The Blues had their injury issues, but Arne Slot's side had hit a bump. A win would have been a vital reset. A loss, and, well, welcome to crisis.

After 95 minutes, an agreeable draw seemed on the cards. Everyone goes home happy. 

But then a lovely bit of play from Chelsea changed things. Enzo Fernande slipped through to Marc Cucurella, who squared to the far post. Estevao - a Brazilian teenager who has shown immense yet little end product - slid in at the back post to send the Bridge into raptures. Chelsea are still imperfect. Liverpool certainly are no longer perfect. 

More on those tricky Blues for a second. Chelsea's transfer strategy reads like this: buy everyone. And it does a nice job, at times. When you have a load of good footballers, you have a good chance of winning games. But there are issues here.

Chief among them? There's not tons of experience. The result is a brittle unit that snaps when the pressure cranks up. That can only be learned over time. It's a game-by-game thing. That 95th minute win over Liverpool might just be a perfect example. 

Here are Erling Haaland's stats so far in the Premier League this season: seven games, nine goals, one assist. 

That's just a bit unfair. 

Man City, once again, were unconvincing at the weekend. They're still lacking in a bit of fluidity, perhaps even short on attacking ideas. Turns out that in good ol' English style you can just 'oof it up to the big man up front. Haaland scored one. City didn't need another. 1-0 win, title race loading. 

"Arsenal are too emotional to win the league."

That was the criticism of the Gunners for the last three years (second-place finishes: three). This was a team that didn't quite get over the line, were too frantic in the big moments. In American sporting terms: they often choked.

And that may yet be the case this year, but Arsenal, so far, have done all of the right things. They have conceded just once from open play this season, and made it all look very easy with a 2-0 win over West Ham on the weekend. Bukayo Saka is healthy. We've got a title race, guys. 

So, Oliver Glasner is probably going to be the next Man United manager. We know this because he is a vaguely interesting man overperforming at a club with limited resources. He also plays the same system as the oft-maligned Ruben Amorim. It's not hard to do the math here.

While that may be true, he's also really rather good in his current job. Palace had gone 19(!!) games unbeaten until this weekend. There was no way that Everton could end that streak, right?

Wrong. A wonderfully poetic stoppage time winner from Jack Grealish sent the Eagles back to London sad. What a way to finish an undefeated run. 

Spain have this weird obsession with ruining careers. Seriously, La Roja are quite comfortably the best national team in Europe, yet insist on doing everything in their power to make themselves weaker. Their latest venture? Starting open warfare with Hansi Flick and Barcelona over Lamine Yamal.

Lamine was once again unavailable for the Blaugrana this weekend, and Barca were battered by Sevilla. Flick later said he thought his team played rather well. That was not the truth. 

So, this is the scary part. We all knew that Vinicius Jr would, at some point, remember how to play football. The question was, would it work with Kylian Mbappe? Last week, it all went pretty horribly, Los Blancos battered 5-2 by Atletico Madrid. 

This time, though, it was magic. They hosted third-placed Villarreal and did an excellent job of making the brilliantly named "Yellow Submarine" look bang average. Vinicius scored twice. Mbappe assisted one of them. They look like friends. Uh oh. 

Christian Pulisic, supposedly in the form of his life and once again prompting a "world-class" debate, showed why simply throwing labels at someone can be a bit of a risky business. He missed just the second penalty of his career, blasting one over against Juventus in a stark moment of reality. The American will surely be back, but this was hardly a great showing.

Is it possible to be a nepo-footballer? Sure, we've all seen the coach's son get a chance at some club. But what about when you're simply related to someone far better? PSG tested that a few years ago when they brought in Ethan Mbappe - not as talented as his brother.

He was moved to Lille - coincidentally, right after Kylian left. And in the shadows, he's performed remarkably well. Over the weekend, he scored a late equalizer against his former club. The camera swiftly panned to the stands where Kylian was found celebrating. Good to know relations are all well between him and his old club.

It's pretty funny how the footballing world works sometimes. One manager goes, another comes in, and perceptions change. Ruben Amorim was the suave tactical genius when at Sporting. Now he's just a very sad man at Manchester United.

In a cruel twist of fate, though, his former club have also struggled in his absence. They lost Victor Gyokeres to Arsenal over the summer, and have dropped off the top of the Portuguese League. It's not crisis time, but times are strange in Lisbon - and even worse in Manchester. 

Erik Ten Hag set an unwanted record when he left Bayer Leverkusen after just 62 days back on September 1. The situation had become untenable. Leverkusen were uncoachable. And fair enough. Sometimes these things just don't work out.

What couldn't have been predicted, though, was the turnaround. Since Ten Hag left, Leverkusen have been pretty damn good. After beating Union Berlin this weekend, they are undefeated in their last seven, and an agreeable sixth in the Bundesliga. The times are a-changing.