Of course, one thing that still looks strange when glancing at the Premier League table is the fact that Manchester City, owners of the last four league titles, aren't more of a factor, sitting in fourth place a whopping 17 points off the pace.

Real Madrid have won the away first leg of a European tie on 40 occasions. If Pep Guardiola wants a sense of how hard the task ahead of them is it is perhaps encapsulated in one statistic -- only on two of the previous 39 occasions have Los Merengues been eliminated from European competition.