So, after defeat against Manchester City, what will Diego Simeone try now? - The Warm-Up

Phil Foden, hey? Phil flippin' Foden. On a night where space and time were almost non-existent, as Atlético Madrid opened up a treacle-black hole in Manchester, Foden sauntered onto the pitch — actually, no, he didn't saunter - he did his stretches and he took his instructions and he ran on. He's a professional.

But if he had sauntered, it would have been alright. First touch: he collected the ball, near the edge of the Atlético box, facing his own goal. Then he turned. And then, as four defenders were dragged towards the little pocket of space he'd found — nature will always Phil a vacuum — he slipped the game's first perfect through ball into the game's first truly dangerous area.

One of the surest markers of brilliance is the sense that the rules of engagement simply do not apply. By rights, Foden should have blundered into the exactly the same morass as his colleagues: the spaceless timeless sticky mess of Atlético at their most profoundly Simeone. Instead, he glided. And Pep Guardiola saw this and was pleased.

"Phil has a special quality. His space in the first steps are massive, he had the composure to make an incredible assist to Kevin. Phil was brilliant, we knew it in the beginning. With Gabriel Jesus and him, we needed to change the game when it was flat."

Flat is an understatement. The first half made pancakes look Pyrenean. But it was a footballing triumph of sorts: perfectly balanced and utterly evacuated. Atlético kept ten back; City kept four. The home team couldn't pass through the visitors; the visitors couldn't break past the home team. Everybody worked incredibly hard and achieved a near-total stalemate. The xG was a rounding error, a radar blip. These are the best teams!

Was it boring? Oh yes. But it was boring in a loaded way, an intense and buzzing nothingness, as "Can they really do this for 90 minutes?" rubbed and sparked against "Well, if anybody can do this for 90 minutes, it's this lot". Things did start to happen in the second half, just a little bit, as the lactic acid began to bite. Atlético had a break, but fluffed it. Raheem Sterling fell over. Atlético had a shot, from an offside position. Raheem Sterling fell over again. And then Guardiola introduced Foden, and the game cracked open at his command.

Simeone's Plan A, to defend for an hour, had worked. Plan B, a triple substitution, only got 10 minutes before Foden and De Bruyne changed the game. The watching continent waited for Plan C, which turned out to be more of the same but with extra violence reserved for Jack Grealish. Perhaps they were trying to provoke a dismissal. Perhaps Jack Grealish has an extremely kickable aura. Or perhaps they're all huge Louis Vuitton fans.

What's Plan D, then? Obviously, City's goal was important in its own right: you need those to win games. It also means Atlético have to force the issue in the second leg, which is more or less the exact opposite of what they'd like to do and what they're good at. But having said that, the visitors didn't seem to have the pace to actually fulfil last night's intentions. This particular version of Antoine Griezmann wants to spend a little less time sprinting and a little more time on the ball.

Actually playing football against Manchester City is a hugely dangerous proposition, because that gives them space to play football as well, and chances are they're better. But Atlético couldn't outbreak them at 0-0, and they won't get the chance at 0-1 down. Whatever Plan D is going to be, it's going to have to involve trying to win the game. Which sounds like it might be fun, one way or another.

We don't mean to sound bitter here, but frankly, it isn't fair. Football transfers are supposed to be risky things: a big pile of money hurled into the void, in the hope that eventually one complicated human will somehow integrate with all these other complicated humans in a complicated and demanding system. A club needs exceptional judgement, as well as luck, and also time and good management and a little more luck, just to be safe.

However, if the club's Liverpool and the player's Luis Díaz, the usual rules don't apply and he can just be brilliant straight away. Is it possible that they've been growing this 'Luis Díaz' in a lab somewhere, and they've switched him in for the one that travelled over from Portugal? Jürgen Klopp has never denied this. We just hope the real Luis Díaz is happy.

Of course, this manifest unfairness is a part with the general unfairness of playing against Liverpool, at least in this particular moment. In the 27th second of the 33rd minute, Adel Taarabt misplaced a pass in midfield, just around the halfway line. The sort of thing that happens all the time to all sorts of players. Eight seconds and three passes later, the ball was in the net and Benfica were two goals down.

"Three passes" doesn't quite do that justice. The second pass was a Trent Alexander-Arnold special, a booming ball Beckhammed — it's a verb, look it up — onto Luis Díaz's head. Obviously he'd made the right run, and obviously he made the right header, because while he's been growing in that vat at Kirkby he's been imprinted with the knowledge of all his teammates' playing patterns. Down to Sadio Mané, goal scored, game over.

Game not quite over. Benfica rallied in the second half, and Darwin Núñez, a fine player who is going to have a long career filled with evolution jokes, was able to poke them back into it. But then came Luis Díaz: he only left Porto a couple of months ago, and he's back to make Benfica feel bad again. Unfairness heaped on unfairness. What a cruel game this is.

That sigh you heard yesterday afternoon — a deep, sad sound, followed either by a muttered imprecation or a sharp "I told you so" — was Arsenal. All of Arsenal. The entire fanbase reacting as one to the news that Kieran Tierney will be having knee surgery and will miss the rest of the season.

All of a sudden, with Takehiro Tomiyasu unfit as well, Arsenal have a full-back problem. Nuno Tavares, Tierney's direct replacement, was hauled off at half-time against Crystal Palace; over on the other side, Cédric lasted an hour. Neither looked particularly convincing, yet both will have to play, and play, and play again, unless Mikel Arteta decides to get funky with his formation.

More generally, Arsenal have a small-squad problem. This was a conscious decision on the part of the club's management: a handful of first-teamers left in January and nobody came in to replace them. Of course, Arteta is being given licence to take the long view, and it's better to bring the right person in over the summer than the wrong person in January.

But equally, it's easier to bring in good players when you've got Champions League football to offer them. Thomas Partey's injured again, and Alexander Lacazette, though he's fit, looks to have entirely forgotten that it's part of his job, in amongst all the captaincy and the pointing, to kick the ball in the net.

Arsenal, then, are at that delicate point in the process where the first-choice first team, when all fit and firing, are a match for anybody. But an injury here and there, or a canny opponent wise to their weaknesses, and the gears start to grind. The arc is still an upwards one, the process is still processing. But it's a long, slow, awkward business, building a football team. Then once you've done that, it turns out you have to build a squad as well.

On this day 12 years ago, Arsenal went to Barcelona and the greatest player in football history, Nicklas Bendtner, opened the scoring. Then some guy called Lionel scored, and scored again, and then completed his hat-trick, and then added a fourth for good luck. (Couldn't believe how hard he hit his first goal at the time. Still can't, all these years later.)

This Athletic piece actually went up before Crystal Palace outclassed Arsenal on Monday night, but that result has only served to reinforce the secret headline hidden in the URL. Patrick Vieira is very good. And Dominic Fifield and friends are here to tell you how.

"Tension had actually been mounting ahead of a trip to Watford towards the end of February, and a meeting with Vieira’s predecessor Roy Hodgson, after six fruitless league games. The sense back then was that Palace were teetering. That the manager might be under pressure. Yet that game was won emphatically and, in the period since, the team’s zestful and inventive approach — the same dynamism that had illuminated their autumn — has come flooding back to deliver more prosperous rewards. The sight of free-spirited, fearless players of real quality tearing into contests with such youthful exuberance has been restorative. The winter lull has dissipated. There have been times when this side have been thrilling to watch. The atmosphere around the place is buoyant."

More Champions League? Go on then. Two more quarter-final first legs for you: watch Chelsea vs. Real Madrid with your dominant eye, and use the other to keep track on Villarreal vs. Bayern Munich. Of course, the most important game of the evening is the Premier League's relegation 18-pointer: Everton are off to Burnley. Crack open your third eye for that one.