What a weekend! The Premier League's top two, Arsenal and Man City, lost, but the bigger news around City was charges against them of breaching financial rules dating back as far as 2009. We also saw more chaos for Liverpool and Real Madrid, big wins for Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and Napoli get closer to a first Serie A title since 1989-90.
There was also another disappointing PSG performance, but perhaps the best story was Sebastian Haller finally scoring his first goal for Borussia Dortmund.
It's Monday, and Gab Marcotti reacts to the biggest moments in the world of football.
A nightmare 24 hours for Man City: Defeat at Spurs and Premier League FFP charge
On Sunday, Manchester City lost 1-0 away to Tottenham, a result that meant they could not take advantage of league-leading Arsenal's loss to Everton the previous day. More than that, Pep Guardiola made a string of unorthodox choices -- leaving out Kevin De Bruyne, profoundly changing the formation, only sending on Ilkay Gundogan minutes from the end -- and Erling Haaland somehow recorded zero shots on goal and zero touches in the opposition box, a first since his arrival in Manchester.
Guardiola was probably bracing himself for the usual overthinking accusations, which routinely dog him when he changes things up and it doesn't work, when the Premier League announced Monday it was charging the club with more than 100 breaches of financial rules dating back to 2009. If found guilty, they could face a range of punishments, including fines, points deductions and even relegation.
We'll get to Sunday's performance in a minute, but it's worth remembering that the charges bring to an end a four-year investigation that was prompted by allegations printed in the German magazine Der Spiegel, which published emails and documents obtained by the Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto. (For those unfamiliar with the story, Pinto's "Football Leaks" operation disclosed thousands of documents, including those related to Cristiano Ronaldo and the Kathryn Mayorga case, details of Paul Pogba's transfer to Manchester United and Gareth Bale's salary.)
UEFA focused on the allegations that City's majority owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group, were illegally pumping money into the club using sponsorship deals with related companies. They were fined and banned from European football for two years, only for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to find that some of the allegations were not proved and some were beyond the statute of limitations. (CAS did issue City a record fine for obstructing the investigation.) The Premier League, however, has no statute of limitations, and its investigation had been hanging over the club for four years.
City hadn't been given a chance to clear their name. Now, they do have that chance, which may explain why they say they "welcome the review" and "look forward to this matter being put to rest once and for all."
An independent commission will take the case and because these matters are confidential and they tend not to leak, we'll need to wait for the outcome. You can read the CAS judgement yourself and make your own guesses as to which way this will go -- bearing in mind that, unlike with UEFA's rules, infractions are not time-barred under Premier League regulations.
What is important here is that any outcome needs to be transparent, easy to understand and, above all, credible, both to supporters and to other owners. Especially now that there are two major clubs like Manchester United and Liverpool up for sale, it's critical that the Premier League be seen as an ecosystem where the rule of law prevails. And if City are found not to have violated the rules, it needs to be clear as to why they're not guilty.
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Nicol: Liverpool players need to step up
Back to events on the pitch. City have not turned in a convincing 90-minute performance against an opponent in the top half of the league for more than a month now. Guardiola has a ton of credit in the bank, and you're not going to bet against him turning it around. And lest we forget, City control their own destiny, with two games against Arsenal remaining. Yet between the jettisoning of Joao Cancelo to Bayern Munich, the ineffectiveness and lack of service for Erling Haaland in a big game like this and some of the curious personnel choices, it feels like there's a lot of work to be one under the hood.
As for Tottenham, they were without Antonio Conte, who was recovering from gallbladder surgery back home in Italy. He wanted to be at Sunday's game, but doctors vetoed it. (To be honest, I imagine that for a guy like him, in terms of stress, watching the game at home hundreds of miles away probably was no less restful than if he had been on the bench.)
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Burley: This was a below-par Arsenal performance
Still, his assistant, Cristian Stellini, channeled his inner Conte and delivered the sort of performance of which he would have been proud. Harry Kane's goal may have been a gift, but the way they defended -- high and with both intensity and intelligent -- was straight out of the best pages in Conte's playbook. It's quite a turnaround from other recent performances, where they found themselves sitting deep and relying on improbable counterattacks.
Bear in mind, too, that this performance comes at a time rife with uncertainty over the future of Conte (who is out of contract in June) and director of football Fabio Paratici (who is appealing his ban for events while at Juventus). City may have done their part to make life easier for Spurs, but make no mistake about it: They fully deserved these three points.
Milan go safety first and pay a heavy price in the derby
Remember the apocryphal quote attributed to Albert Einstein? "The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results?" It may be true, but it's also true that if you do things a certain way for a long time and enjoy success, doing a handbrake turn and doing things entirely differently all of a sudden can be pretty insane too.
Yet that's what Stefano Pioli had his Milan team do in this weekend's derby.
Pioli had built his success -- and last season's title -- on an aggressive, high-energy, proactive style. It wasn't working of late as they hadn't won a game since Jan. 4, so he shifted to a 5-3-2 formation that mirrored Inter's lineup and sat deep, perhaps looking to hit on the break. Ismael Bennacer's absence in midfield was a big blow, sure, but Rafael Leao's absence (he played, ahem, Divock Origi instead) was a purely self-inflicted wound.
Milan played scared, played for the draw and played really, really poorly. The fact that their Expected Goals through 58 minutes was 0.0 tells you all you need to know. Things picked up a little by the time he sent on Leao and Alexis Saelemaekers near the hour mark, but the damage had been done as Inter were a goal up and could -- and should -- have scored more.
If Milan are going to get out of their rut, it's not going to be by reinventing the wheel and playing a totally different brand of football midway through the season. It's going to be by doing what got them there, only doing it better.
As for Inter, this was an excellent performance and the side looks sharp and fit, just as two key guys like Romelu Lukaku and Marcelo Brozovic look ready to return as starters. If you're going to nit-pick, they should have put the game to bed sooner: better control from Olivier Giroud and Milan might have equalised, a chance created by -- who else? -- Leao. But the run of form is excellent and second place looks consolidated heading into the Champions League.
Real Madrid fall at Mallorca to freak own goal, and Vinicius is targeted (again)
Mallorca away was going to be one of those games where you either score early and often, or you're put through the wringer by a tough, physical defensive-minded side.
It turned out to be the latter for Real Madrid. Despite 20 shots on goal (and winning the xG battle 1.76 to 0.15), a freak own goal by Nacho meant they lost 1-0. With Barcelona winning later in the day, the gap is now eight points at the top in LaLiga, and that's significant.
I've mentioned the club's lack of depth, and it was telling in this match. They had no Karim Benzema, no Thibaut Courtois, no Eder Militao or Toni Kroos, while Luka Modric and David Alaba were only fit enough for the bench. It translated to a lack of incisiveness on the pitch.
Vinicius was fouled no fewer than 10 times, and when your game is based so much on athleticism, that is bound to take its toll. Marco Asensio missed a penalty, Fede Valverde continued with his subpar season and Dani Ceballos? Well, he had a Dani Ceballos performance.
Madrid probably still did enough to win, but when you predicate things on fine margins, matters can go against you very quickly. It feels like a lost opportunity if, in early February, they're already forced to focus on defending the Champions League.
Between now and the international break in six weeks' time, the title will likely be decided. There's a Madrid derby, a Clasico and tricky away trips to Betis and Osasuna as well as a couple of "gimmes" -- on paper, anyway -- against Elche and Espanyol. It's time for folks to step up.
Klopp at a loss as Liverpool stumble again
If you exclude the FA Cup replay against Wolves, in which they were outshot and out-possessed by the opposition, Liverpool have not won since 2022. Saturday's 3-0 league defeat to Wolves leaves them in 10th place, 11 points from fourth place. On New Year's Day, they were sixth, four points outside the Champions League spots. This is what you call free-fall.
Injuries don't offer a full alibi, and what's most disconcerting about this most recent setback is Jurgen Klopp's dejection postgame. It's one thing to be honest in your assessment -- and they were very poor -- but it's another to come across as negative and dispirited as he did.
The feeling you're left with is that there are so many things going awry at once that they don't know where to begin to fix it.
The good news for PSG is that even without Kylian Mbappe and Neymar (as was the case against Toulouse), they still have standouts like Lionel Messi (who scored the winner, bringing his seasonal total to 10 in the league alone) and Achraf Hakimi, who was devastating down the flank.
A nightmare 24 hours for Man City: Defeat at Spurs and Premier League FFP charge
Milan go safety first and pay a heavy price in the derby
Real Madrid fall at Mallorca to freak own goal, and Vinicius is targeted (again)
Klopp at a loss as Liverpool stumble again
Messi -- and not much else -- from Paris Saint-Germain or Galtier