The Champions League returned with a bang last night with Lazio goalkeeper Ivan Provedel grabbing the headlines thanks to his 95th-minute equaliser against Atletico Madrid while some of the competitions big guns got off to flying starts with Man City, PSG, and Barcelona all winning on Tuesday night.
Attention now turns to this evening’s games with the heavyweight clash of Bayern Munich and Manchester United the main event.
Bar One Racing Broadcaster and football commentator Kieran Burke looks ahead to Wednesday’s Champions League highlight.
Bayern Munich v Manchester United – 8.00 KO.
Erik ten Hag could hardly have asked for a worse possible opening group stage match given Manchester United’s on and off-field woes presently.
United have looked so easy to play against this season with Wolverhampton Wanderers showing the rest of the pack where United’s vulnerabilities lay as they carved through them time after time on the opening Monday night of the season.
While United got away with it on that occasion, they certainly haven’t been so lucky since with Brighton the latest team to pick the Red Devils apart at the weekend.
1-3 was the final score at Old Trafford on Saturday but it could have been so much worse for United who have looked particularly porous in key areas at the start of a season that promised so much.
Bayern Munich are primed to expose such openings with the German champions unbeatable with three wins and a draw in the Bundesliga this season.
Harry Kane has hit the ground running while speaking of running, the pace in this Munich side should spread real fear throughout the entire Manchester United team given their lack of confidence and apparent lack of cohesion and organisation so far this season.
Premier League old boys Serge Gnabry and Leroy Sane will be rubbing their hands together having watched Manchester United’s performances so far this season while England captain Harry Kane will be keen to remind Premier League audiences what they are missing out on this season.
Manchester United have travelled to Germany with a squad that contains almost as many goalkeepers as defenders while rumours of a post-match dressing room bust-up involving a number of players after the Brighton defeat only adds further to ten Hag’s ever-growing headache.
If United don’t play their cards right this evening, this could get ugly.
BEST BET: Bayern Munich -1 (21/20)
* Bar One Racing is offering Double The Odds First Goalscorer on tonight’s match with Harry Kane the 11/4 favourite to open the scoring. You can view the latest match markets & odds in full, here.