Real Madrid's journey in the Champions League looks so difficult this season, they face clubs that are quite tough to qualify for the last 16, if they experience a 3rd defeat, their position will be even more threatened because they have to fight again in the play-off round, it will make Real Madrid's schedule even tighter this season. I also don't think Liverpool will back down to Real Madrid in this match and if they can beat Real Madrid, it will reduce the competition in the UCL if Real Madrid does not qualify when they have to compete in the play-off round.
Real Madrid are having a lot of issues in their game this season. They are playing poorly in both La Liga and champions league this season. They know they have a problem and if they don’t try and sort it out early, it’ll make them not do well this season in both competitions. They are facing injury crisis and on that, their in game play in the field in not giving that positive notion of them making it far this season. The players are yet to blend with one another and are still faced with injury again amongst their top eleven teams.
Liverpool are already on the top of the standings in the champions league table, their performance this season has been so great and they’re maintaining the first position in both the premier league and champions league. Real Madrid may be the king of the champions league competition, but they’re not given that vibe this seasons and this will only make their game against Liverpool more difficult for them to win. Liverpool will not want to falter and they’ll take advantage of Real Madrid’s weak form now to win the match.
I guess you can say they were the kings of the former pattern of the champions league because since this new pattern I think some big clubs have being somehow reluctant to playing with their full will knowing that they have lots of games at hand even if they lost one because I believe in the time of group stages games were not actually played like this and teams to an extent was more serious knowing that every single game is a final.