Noses bloodied by their European jaunt, Manchester City and Liverpool return to lick their wounds in the Premier League.
Brendan Rodgers' men are out of the Europa League, having lost on penalties to Besiktas, City might as well be: overturning a 2-1 deficit at the Camp Nou against Barcelona isn't impossible, just hugely improbable.
In times like these it's about how quickly and effectively managers can hit the reset button and rid themselves of the European hangover.
Rationally, neither side ought to be wanting for motivation.
Liverpool are gunning for that top four finish which has broader implications in the week that they received a clean bill of health in
Financial Fair Play terms from Uefa's Club Financial Control Body.
They're in the clear for 2011/12 and 2012/13, but they'll be assessed again in April (essentially, since they didn't qualify for European competition last year, they're getting assessed twice this year). No Champions' League next year, after the kind of spending they did last summer, could present a problem.
City have a chance to cut Chelsea's lead to just two points (though Jose Mourinho's crew will wave a game in hand) and the Premier League is likely their last opportunity to avoid a trophyless season. That has implications not just for Manuel Pellegrini, but for the squad as a whole: of the XI who started against Barcelona, Sergio Aguero was the only player under the age of twenty-seven, and he's twenty-six.
Liverpool's loss to Besiktas was only their second since mid-December (the other came against Chelsea in the League Cup), yet while results have been coming, Rodgers' back three isn't exactly looking settled and accomplished. Defensively, they're better, but up front, it remains a question of individuals and supply. You can't always rely on Raheem Sterling or Daniel Sturridge to conjure up something - the latter was particularly off his game in Istanbul - and while the emphasis on passing is still there, when certain pieces are missing (and Steven Gerrard can't play every game), supply remains intermittent.
City's issues are tougher to pin down. The home defeat to Barcelona
highlighted the gap that still separates them from the world's elite.
One key absence - Yaya Toure's - shouldn't have a knock-on effect to the point that every area of the pitch suffers, but that's what happened against the Catalans. David Silva and Samir Nasri got sucked inside to help out, there was no width as a result, and the strikers received little service. The Ivorian will be back, but the danger is that things have gone stale psychologically.
Today is where Rodgers and Pellegrini earn their bacon. Where they trot out the old cliche about how it's not about getting knocked down, it's about getting back. And where they get their players to buy into that old coaching cliche. Or not.
Beyond the fact that today's League Cup final offers Jose Mourinho a chance to end a trophyless drought that extends back two and half years (the 2012 Spanish SuperCup) the most interesting point for Chelsea will likely be how they cope without Nemanja Matic.
The big Serb is suspended after being sent off against Burnley for reacting to the Ashley Barnes whack. This season, Chelsea have lost three games in all competitions - Bradford in the FA Cup, Newcastle
and Tottenham in the Premier League. It's probably not a coincidence
that Matic was obvious on two of those occasions. Indeed, Chelsea's record when he hasn't started this season is two wins (against Bolton and Shrewsbury) and two defeats.
Ramires will likely come in for Matic alongside Cesc Fabrages.
Mourinho doesn't have the option of playing two holding midfielders as he's done in some big games (PSG, Liverpool, etc.) because John Obi Mikel is also unavailable. Chelsea will thus necessarily be more attack-minded, which means everyone will have to work that much harder. Think of it as a test of their - and Mourinho's - ability to adjust. And if things don't go Chelsea's way expect many more references to what happened against Burnley in the aftermath...
For the second straight week, Parma have seen their Serie A fixture called off. The club simply don't have the liquidity to pay for travel and expenses and nobody will give them credit. Players haven't
been paid since July, staff since November and suppliers for years.
Tommaso Ghirardi, the man who owned the club from 2007 until December somehow oversaw a situation where debt ballooned from £9m to £145m even as the side raked in more than £200m in TV revenues and continued to yo-yo between the top two divisions.
This isn't a story of a club "living a dream", Leeds United style, signing players they couldn't afford and taking huge gambles. This is a dual debacle. Ghirardi, the classic spoiled son of a wealthy family, found himself cut off a few years back and with nobody willing to
extend him credit. So he made two extraordinarily foolish decisions.
He borrowed against future TV revenue and gate receipts: three years'
worth as it stands. And he spent the money on a hare-brained scheme whereby Parma sealed partnerships with lower division teams in Italy (Crotone, Gubbio) and a team in Slovenia (Nova Gorica) and stocked them with literally hundreds of players the club acquired. At one point, according to former club executive Alessandro Melli, they had
240 players under contract, representing 38 different countries.
Why? It was either an innovative scheme to cash in on players whose value would appreciate or something more sinister entirely (prosecutors are looking into it).
There are two possible outcomes. Either the club goes into administration, the league advances them money (around £5 million) to meet expenses between now and the end of the season so they can fulfill their fixtures and Parma is restructured and sold on in the summer a division down.
Or they simply fold and disappear. And, maybe, a new club will rise from the amateur ranks. The latter is what everyone is working to avoid.
It's another black eye for Serie A.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article