{"id":160834,"date":"2025-09-16T12:37:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T12:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/160834\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T12:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T12:37:11","slug":"spurs-and-arsenal-in-champions-league-action-phil-mcnulty-qa-taking-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/160834\/","title":{"rendered":"Spurs and Arsenal in Champions League action; Phil McNulty Q&#038;A taking place"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Which player are you most looking forward to watching?published at 13:31 BST<\/p>\n<p>13:31 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/a152ffbd-69aa-4511-9a72-3e0d18403c77.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Champions League<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Lamine Yamal\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/f25103aa-accc-453f-a6ee-766841defea9.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Just because it&#8217;s the obvious answer doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s wrong&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">John Murray: The player I&#8217;m looking forward to watching is Yamal as I am yet to commentate on him in a Barcelona shirt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While disappointingly it looks like he might not be fit for Thursday at St James&#8217; Park, I suspect there will be other opportunities as this Champions League progresses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sami Mokbel: At 18, Yamal is still a kid &#8211; but already one of the premier attacking talents in European football. Destined to be one of, if not the, best footballers in the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Steph Houghton: Yamal is a global superstar. I&#8217;m excited to see how he performs against teams that are more than likely going to double up against him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nicky Bandini: We&#8217;re all itching to see more of Yamal, aren&#8217;t we? The two legs of Barcelona&#8217;s semi-final against Inter last season will stay with me for a very long time. Maybe it&#8217;s unfair to ask an 18-year-old what he can do for an encore, but you can&#8217;t help but be excited at the prospect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There are plenty of others I&#8217;m excited to watch too though! Of course we&#8217;re all curious about Max Dowman after he made his debut for Arsenal at 15, and it&#8217;ll be fun to see Scott McTominay in the Champions League with Napoli after he fired them to a domestic title last season and was named Serie A&#8217;s Most Valuable Player.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">I wonder if this might be a breakout year for Kenan Yildiz too, still only 20 and with a full season of starting for Juventus now under his belt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Phil McNulty: It&#8217;s not a shock choice but I can&#8217;t wait to see Yamal play for Barcelona, hopefully starting against Newcastle on Thursday, although the 18-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/cly74dldzjdo\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">is struggling with a back injury<\/a> picked up on international duty with Spain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">PSG&#8217;s Doue is another brilliant young talent currently struggling with an injury, but he is another who will light up the tournament when fit, as he did so wonderfully last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Matt Upson: Yamal is the player I want to see. He is a ridiculous talent and I love watching him play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Which player are you most looking forward to watching?published at 13:31 BST 13:31 BST Champions League Image source,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-160834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}