The Warm-Up: Chelsea bring the nonsense in the Champions League

Something odd happened to the Warm-Up on Wednesday afternoon. A thought; a new thought. "Let's watch Chelsea," we thought. Not out of professional obligation, or general inertia, or in the hope of seeing a big English team lose. "Let's watch Chelsea … because they're fun."

And you know what? The Warm-Up was right. Frank Lampard and his Bright-Eyed Youngsters went to Valencia looking for a win to take control of an intriguingly tight group. What they got was a 2-2 draw that could have been 5-5, and not just in the usual "oh, there were a few chances" way. We're talking air shots, missed penalties, inexplicable collapses.

On 18 minutes, Maxi Gomez missed the ball — and an open goal — so completely that the Warm-Up laughed out loud. And we didn't stop giggling until Daniel Wass' hopeful cross banana-ed over Kepa Arrizabalaga and in off the post. Then we made started making weird snorting noises. That's probably too much information.

The whole thing looked less like a Champions League game, and more like two sugar-crazed children beating the snot out of an air hockey machine. Great fun, obviously, even if we couldn't help feeling a little concerned about the long-term viability of this approach. 2-2 away to Valencia, 4-4 at home to Ajax. A defence made of the spaces between people, and a goalkeeper who always looks very, very stressed.

They should have too much for Lille in their final group game, but if they're in anything like this shape when the knockouts roll around, they're going to get pulverised by one of Europe's bigger boys. And while that, too, would keep the Warm-Up entertained — we're horrible cynics, deep down — it might not quite be so much fun for Roman Abramovich.

But hey! Who needs trophies, when the whole nation is gladdened by your works. Cheers, Chelsea. This was great.

An hour's rest for Trent Alexander-Arnold. A knock for Fabinho. And a draw, at home, against Napoli, which isn't a bad result by any stretch but does mean that Liverpool aren't quite through to the last 16. Not yet.

They need a result in Salzburg. And given the way Liverpool are chewing up all comers this season, this shouldn't be a problem. Even with Erling Braut Håland doing his best to pump his transfer fee into the realms of the absurd.

But it's a live game, and it didn't have to be. Liverpool have been so good this season that everybody else in the Premier League is looking to circumstance to trip them over. And the best bet for this, it seems, is Liverpool's quite ridiculous December fixture list, which includes a whole bonus tournament in Qatar. Already, thanks to the League Cup, they're having to play games on consecutive days. And now they can't afford to play the kids in Austria …

… of course, they'll probably be fine. Even when they're not great, they're very good, and apparently it's only Napoli that know how to frustrate them. If December doesn't get them, then Manchester City will just have to get Carlo Ancelotti in for the new year. Sorry, Pep. We don't make the rules.

It's been a rough week for every neutral's second-favourite team (after Chelsea, obviously): Borussia Dortmund. At the weekend they went 3-0 down to relegation certainties Paderborn, and though they managed to claw that game back to a draw, there's a real end of days feeling about Lucien Favre's reign.

Perfect time to play Barcelona, then.

With the desperate bravado of a doomed man, Favre decided to mix things up a bit. He left Jadon Sancho on the bench in favour of Nico Schulz, he pushed Marco Reus up front, and— well, it doesn't matter what else, since Lionel Messi steamrollered the whole occasion anyway.

On his 700th appearance for Barcelona, Messi scored his 613th goal for the club, which is utterly absurd. He made two more, and generally buzzed about the place like … like … well, like Lionel Messi. He's good enough that he gets to be compared to himself; he was good enough that even a sensible, functional Dortmund team might have struggled to live with him.

This isn't that. In the interests of narrative, Sancho came off the bench for the second half. He scored, he hit the bar, he made the decision to leave him on the bench look a nonsense. Poor Lucien Favre. At least he'll get some time off over Christmas.

Here's Romelu Lukaku, who seems to be enjoying life these days.

Beautiful. Later on in the game the Belgian rounded the keeper, advanced on the goal, and absolutely yammered it into the empty net from about four yards. More of all of this, please. It's so nice to see him having fun.

Did you wake up this morning and think "Hey, remember that time Grant Holt scored a hat-trick for Norwich against Ipswich Town. That must have been, ooh, about nine years ago." Well, you were right! It was exactly nine years ago.

And like a kid at Christmas, Norwich's Twitter account woke up very early to remind us all.

Over at The Athletic (£), Daniel Taylor would like to talk about Phil Jones.

When Zeus abducted the princess Europa, inadvertently naming a continent in the process, do you think he knew that one day, the world's greatest footballing tournament would also be named in her honour? Probably not. He wasn't much of a forward thinker.

Anyway, Manchester United are kicking off against Astana at 3.50 in the afternoon UK time, beginning six solid hours of delightful mayhem. Why not follow that with Rangers-Feyenoord, and then the latest instalment of Unai Emery vs. The Emirates? Eintracht Frankfurt will be there too. Treat yourself.