Dubai: We may be three weeks away from Halloween but already there are some horror stories unfolding in European football.
Take a peek at the leagues, and you will see some strange names at the top of the table, while others are conspicuous by their absence.
Granted, it is no great surprise to see Manchester City, Paris St-Germain or Juventus leading the English, French and Italian leagues.
However, when was the last time you saw Bayern Munich down to sixth in Germany’s Bundesliga at this stage of the season? Or, Sevilla at the top of Spain’s La Liga, while Barcelona and Real Madrid flounder?
Even in the Scottish Premiership where Celtic and Rangers have shared the title between them since 1986, Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian are leading.
Bayern are without a win in the last three league matches under Niko Kovac after following up four opening wins with a draw against Augsburg and two defeats to Hertha Berlin and Borussia Moenchengladbach.
That form has followed them into Europe as well where they drew at home to Ajax in their second Uefa Champions League group game last week.
This is Bayern’s worst start to the season in eight years. It’s the first time they’ve lost consecutive league games since May 2015, after they had already won the title under Pep Guardiola.
This is also their worst run of results across all competitions since September 2017, when Carlo Ancelotti was sacked following a 3-0 defeat away to PSG in the Champions League group stage.
Over in Spain we are seeing the worst Barcelona at this stage of a league in 13 seasons after they followed up four opening league wins with a draw, a defeat and two draws, to Girona, Leganes, Atletico Bilbao and Valencia respectively.
At least they are scoring in their defeats however, as their El Clasico rivals Real have now gone almost seven hours without a goal for their worst scoring run in more than 11 years.
League defeats to Sevilla and Alaves either side of a goalless draw against Atletico Madrid and a defeat to CSKA Moscow in the Champions League, see them go on their longest goalless streak since January 2007 under Fabio Capello.
What are the reasons for this? Well the void left by Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure from Real to Juventus over the summer could account for some of the Spanish fallout, also affecting their rivals Barca.
Julen Lopetegui replacing Zinedine Zidane at Real has also had an affect making Barca even more complacent.
Bayern are also under new management with Kovac taking over from Jupp Heynckes, and they have similarly lost the likes of Arturo Vidal to Barca over the summer without replacement.
Add to this the fact that most of the players from these three clubs would have played a part in this summer’s World Cup, therefore be returning late and fatigued, and the poor starts begin to make sense.
Quite what Rangers’ or Celtic’s excuse is though, is unclear, neither club had many — if any — players at the World Cup. Both had early summer qualifiers for Europe, but that’s something they have every season.
Yet still Celtic have endured their worst league start in 20 years, dropping eight points, while Rangers have suffered their worst away league start in 28 years after dropping 10 points on the road. Could it be that despite the disparity of wealth in Scotland — from the two best clubs making Europe — the other clubs are getting better or is there something else amiss? And could we dare to see the first non Celtic/Rangers Scottish champions in 34 years since Aberdeen?
