The Champions League group stages returned on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and 5 Premier League teams participated. Chelsea recorded a comfortable 6-0 win at home against Qarabag; Manchester United were 3-0 victors over FC Basel; Spurs managed to get over their Wembley troubles with an impressive 3-1 win against Borussia Dortmund; Manchester City were impressive in sweeping Feyenoord aside 4-0; and Liverpool were the only Premier League side who failed to win, drawing 2-2 with Sevilla. Here’s one social media story you might have missed from each of those games:
Chelsea 6-0 Qarabag
Michy Batshuayi scored twice on Tuesday night after he was allowed a rare start for the Blues, which also gave him a boost on social media. Batshuayi was the second most talked about Chelsea player on Twitter (with 12,047 tweets), behind Davide Zappacosta (31,725 tweets). Zappacosta’s goal may have grabbed the headlines but Batshuayi is certainly growing into a fan favourite, with the emotion donut demonstrating just how popular he is with the Stamford Bridge faithful.
The positivity surrounding him also grew significantly after his impressive performance, with an increase in positive sentiment of 14% recorded for the Belgian. Blues fans will be hoping he can take that form into the Premier League to support main man Alvaro Morata.
Manchester United 3-0 FC Basel
Ashley Young made a great impression on his first appearance of the season, getting the assist for Marouane Fellaini’s goal and generally stepping up well in the absence of captain Antonio Valencia. Young has been out of the team for a long time at United but his performance on Tuesday night saw the levels of positivity surrounding him soar, rising by 69%!
Fans were keen to see more performances like that from the former England winger, with the benefit of a true wide-man not being lost on United fans:
Ashley Young shows what the benefit of having a traditional winger in the team is. Crosses into the box. Straight into King Fellaini’s path.
— Liam Canning (@LiamPaulCanning) September 12, 2017
Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 Borussia Dortmund
Harry Kane was by far the most talked about Spurs player after his brace against Dortmund made him the first English player to score in 3 consecutive Champions League games since Wayne Rooney. Spurs fans were understandably happy (35%) about his performance and loving (39%) the fact that he’s a Spurs player, as England’s star striker continues to prove he’s one of the very best in the world.
As you can see, there’s also some anger (12%) in our donut. This was the result of Phil Neville’s claim that Kane would have to leave Spurs to be considered “world class”. As Spurs fans were quick to point out, that was hugely disrespectful both to the club and to Kane:
Ridiculous and arrogant. By this logic, Alan Shearer wouldn't be world class. https://t.co/Tn5Y3awKCB
— AtourT (@AT_Spurs) September 13, 2017
Delete. Staggering the amount of widespread media hatred for Spurs and anything the club or the players achieve. https://t.co/cCvSweZOcj
— Aaron (@MrAaron_Rea) September 13, 2017
Bitterness is a terrible thing ☺️ https://t.co/YuD3G13Qyx
— Martha (@Mmords22) September 13, 2017
Feyenoord 0-4 Manchester City
Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy stole the headlines post-game after they mocked each other on Twitter. The two full-backs seem to be getting on really well after they both joined the club in the summer, and fans were treated to a sneak peak of some of that camaraderie after the match in the Netherlands.
1) Walker poked fun at Mendy after he was nutmegged:
Close them legs my friend @benmendy23 😭😭😂😂 pic.twitter.com/82oEMWMAXm
— Kyle Walker (@kylewalker2) September 13, 2017
2) Mendy pretended not to know what Walker was talking about:
(Sorry I dont know what nutmeg you are talking about guys 👀👀👀)
— Benjamin Mendy (@benmendy23) September 13, 2017
3) Whilst simultaneously returning fire…
🎯 touché 😂 pic.twitter.com/X0zLnTW0B9
— Benjamin Mendy (@benmendy23) September 13, 2017
4) Man City’s official account joined in to jog Mendy’s memory:
Think they mean this one, Ben… 😉 pic.twitter.com/f6h6K9iw5E
— Manchester City (@ManCity) September 13, 2017
5) Before Mendy finally had to admit defeat…
No more battery sorry 📴📴📴
— Benjamin Mendy (@benmendy23) September 13, 2017
Looks like the City boys are getting on well!
Liverpool 2-2 Sevilla
Safe to say Dejan Lovren won’t be getting any free drinks around Liverpool anytime soon… He was clearly seen as the reason for Liverpool not winning their clash with Sevilla, with 29,100 tweets being sent about him (over 10,000 more than the second most talked about player, Coutinho). His emotion donut doesn’t make for pretty reading, with 69% of tweets about him expressing anger.
Ian Wright summed up the mood for Liverpool fans, who must be wondering how many mistakes Lovren is allowed to make before he gets dropped…
Lovren must have secrets on Klopp😳
— Ian Wright (@IanWright0) September 13, 2017
For the most part it was an impressive week for the English teams in Europe, with every team taking at least a point and only Liverpool failing to win (and if it wasn’t for Lovren’s mistake they probably would have done!) It wasn’t the most difficult week of fixtures for most teams, with Qarabag, Basel and Feyenoord certainly not at the level of Chelsea, United and City respectively, but Spurs’ win will give them confidence and on reflection Liverpool might be happy with a draw.
Join us again in a couple of weeks to have a look at the social media stories of Matchday 2!
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