Rate My Team: Champions League Match-Day 4

Match-day 4 reverses the fixtures from match-day 3. I was satisfied with my MD3 squad going into that game-week, and it returned a solid 64 points. That put me on 217 points for the season, good enough for 189th place in the NMA league and 15,868th place in the world. Therefore I had no plans for serious surgery on this squad, which was set to face the same opposition in MD 4:

But unfortunately fate intervened, and I have been forced to make a couple changes. Ansu Fati and Joshua Kimmich both suffered torn menisci in their respective matches on 7 November. They’ve both undergone surgery and will be out of action for months, so I have no option but to replace them. Fortunately, those transfers will fit within the two free ones the game allows me for this match-day.

In addition to finding replacements who are poised to perform well, I also wanted to bring my team into better Tuesday/Wednesday balance. As it stood, in addition to my keeper Edouard Mendy, I had only Felipe, Robert Lewandowski, and Augustín Marchesín scheduled to play on the second game-day. Therefore, an additional criterion for my two transfers was that they both play on Wednesday, so that I will have sufficient 2nd-day coverage to replace no-shows and under-performers from Tuesday.

Consequently, for Kimmich I landed on Rami Bensebaini, and for Fati I brought in Diogo Jota. Bensebaini scored, kept a clean sheet, and recovered eight balls in Borussia Mönchengladbach’s 6-0 destruction of Shakhtar Donetsk on match-day 3. A repeat of that 14-point performance might be an unrealistic expectation, but I’d be happy with even half of it!

NMA’s EPL audience will be well-familiar with Diogo Jota. The former Wolves winger now plies his trade for Liverpool, where he has scored four goals in seven league games, eight in ten across all competitions — including a hattrick in UCL MD-3. Again, a repeat hattrick is a lot to ask, but this time Atalanta must travel to Anfield, where ‘Pool are now undefeated in a club-record 64 consecutive games. His form, the opposition, and the match location make Jota impossible to ignore. Many are even tipping him as a captaincy candidate this week.

So below is the tentative look of my MD-4 squad. I should also mention that the two transfers left £1.9M in my bank, where before I had zero. Not a bad fringe benefit!

I haven’t finalized it yet, as I’ll continue to collect team news and transfer insights until tomorrow. Once I do save a team, I’ll fill the bench with players who play on Wednesday. And if that final squad differs from the provisional team I’ve laid out here, I’ll post an update in the comments.

Good luck everyone, and make sure to check out MiQ’s Match Day 4 Preview article, as well as Prakhar’s Match Day 4 Player Picks article. I relied heavily on both of those sources when I was shopping for my two enforced transfers this week.

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Do you have any injured players who must be replaced? Any players you merely want to replace? Which players do you think are poised for profit this week, and which do you think will disappoint? Please tell us your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to rate my team!

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