UEFA Champions League: Michael Carrick takes charge of his first game against Villarreal as Chelsea face Juventus

(Football news) This will be United’s first game since the sacking of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as they face Unai Emery’s Villarreal. Manchester United have won just one match out of their last five games in all competitions and caretaker manager Michael Carrick has an uphill task to raise the spirit in the dressing room after a series of disappointing results. The Yellow Submarine haven’t had the best of starts to their domestic campaign as well, winning just 3 out of 13 La Liga matches, but the current Europa League Champions are level on points at the top with Manchester United. Carrick will know that a win against Unai Emery’s side will confirm their spot in the knockout rounds of the competition with a game to spare

For this fixture, Villarreal will be without their talisman Gerard Moreno due to a hamstring injury while Serge Aurier is ineligible to play in the Champions League, Emery is also sweating on the fitness of Arnaut Danjuma and Etienne Capoue as they missed the Celta Vigo clash midweek. For United, Paul Pogba and Raphael Varane will be unavailable through injury, Mason Greenwood is also absent having tested positive for COVID-19. Carrick is most likely going to make changes as we can expect Donny Van De Beek and Jesse Lingard back into the playing XI to mainly bring some freshness into the team.

Michael Carrick in his press conference thanked Ole for his contribution “First of all, it’s obviously been an emotional day. Yesterday, for myself and everybody at the club. I’ve been working with Ole for three years now and have known him for an awful lot longer than that and knowing the person that he is, the values that he has and lives by and how he treats people. To see Ole unfortunately lose his job yesterday was tough for me. It was tough for a lot of people at the club. You could tell by the emotion that was around the place yesterday and what Ole meant to everyone.

“We understand and Ole obviously understands. He said it himself, results in this business is everything. As much as you build a foundation and the right culture and treat people the right way, sometimes you don’t always get what you deserve unfortunately. I want to say a massive thank you to Ole, especially from me and the staff as well as the players because I’ve learned an awful lot from him. He taught me a lot and it’s been an absolute pleasure working with him. Sad, sad, sad day initially and I wish Ole all the very best”

Chelsea face Juventus at Stamford Bridge, Allegri’s side have already qualified for the knockout stages as they sit three points above Chelsea. Thomas Tuchel’s side are aware that a victory or even a draw would be enough for them to qualify for the round of 16’s, but knowing Chelsea’s ambitions they would want to win this match and win the group as well. Heading into the match Juventus’ form has been topsy turvy as they won against Lazio but lost against Sassuolo and Hellas Verona and as for Chelsea their last defeat came against Juve in the reverse fixture, since then they have kept six clean sheets in eight matches. For Thomas Tuchel there could be a welcome return for both Timo Werner and Romelu Lukaku as they returned to training in recent days and for Juventus they will be without Paulo Dybala, Aaron Ramsey and Giorgio Chiellini for this fixture.

“Not sure yet (about Lukaku). He seemed okay in training yesterday, we'll see about the reaction. He has an appointment with the doctors and physios… the last minutes would be the absolute maximum Jorginho is absolutely okay. Kai (Havertz) had a hamstring problem so we took him off and we have some doubts. This is more or less the question mark," Tuchel told reporters

“We'll not risk our qualification and go all in if the situation (with Lukaku's injury) is like this, but we'll try everything to win the group and to do this, we have to win the game. We always had the options. It's on the players. When they're needed and when they have the chance to show their potential, they need to… be ready. That's life at Chelsea… this is what they do in a very impressive way," said Tuchel.

Xavi will get his first taste of Champions league football as his Barcelona side face Benfica at Camp Nou. For his first major task he needs to rescue Barca’s Champions League and qualify for the Knockout stages, Xavi knows a victory against the high flying Benfica will strengthen their second place in the group. Benfica are coming into this game after registering a huge victory against Pacos Ferreira on Saturday, they are sitting at the third position with 28 points in 11 games so far. For Barcelona, Martin Braithwaite, Pedri, Ousmane Dembele and Ansu Fati will be unavailable due to injuries as Nico Gonzalez, Oscar Mingueza and Sergio Busquets are also huge doubts. For Benfica Lucas Verissimo, Joao Mario and Nemanja Radonjic will be unavailable due to injuries. However, both Valentino Lazaro and Andre Almeida could be in contention after recovering from an injury.

Also read: Pedri becomes first Barcelona player since Lionel Messi to win the Golden Boy award

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