Both of Monaco vs Barcelona and Atlanta vs arsenal are not a huge surprise as many people are portraying it. Atlanta were the Europa league champions beating last season Bundesliga winner Leverkusen. Monaco too is a second team in french league last season. Both of Atlanta and Monaco were playing at home. Manchester City vs Inter Milan was much surprising for me. But its first round of league and there are plenty of matches to be played.
I don't see it your way so I would have to align with the majority, both matches were surprising to me and more reason to know that Arsenal is not what we think it is, last season's feat is seriously dwindling, and it may be obvious later. Although it's better than Barcelona, it did not conceal any goals but neither did it score as Atlanta is even the better team. I also wouldn't use the match between Leverkusen and Atalanta to judge entirely, there are times that the underdogs have the luck and even if Arsenal is at their top feat, they would have performed better, Arteta has more work to do especially when they play outside the local league.
But nothing short of a disgraceful performance was that of Barcelona vs Monaco, even if they would underperform, not to the point that Monaco would give them the tough time as seen on Thursday. I never expected another goal by Monaco after the equalizer by Lamine Yamal even if they would not score another, so it's never far from surprising and those two matches would have "cut" tickets of many bettors this week.
