The Indy Football Podcast: Which English team is best placed to end Real Madrid’s Champions League dominance?

Jack Pitt-Brooke and Jack Austin join Ed Malyon for The Indy Football Podcast to assess the chances of Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United et al in the upcoming Champions League

The Champions League is back - and so is The Indy Football Podcast! This season's competition promises to be another belter, with PSG having spent the best part of £400m in their effort to break into Europe's elite while weakening two rivals.

Real Madrid are again favourites, but can they really pull off a three-peat? Juventus, who they beat in last year's final, will be hoping they can't and can instead lift the crown themselves before Gianluigi Buffon retires in the summer.

Among the other strong contenders are the usual suspects of Atletico Madrid, a Neymar-less Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Or could a dark horse emerge and upset the big boys?

Can Monaco repeat last season's heroics despite losing Kylian Mbappe et al to pastures new?

And what of the domestic front? Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United all return to the competition after absences while Manchester City and Tottenham will be hoping to improve on disappointing performances last year.

A decade ago, Premier League clubs dominated European football. The spell between 2005 and 2012 saw a total of eight English finalists in the Champions League, with 2008 itself boasting two.

But since Chelsea's success in Munich at the end of that era there has been a drought with just two semi-finalists in four years.

So what happened?

The two Jacks - Austin and Pitt-Brooke - join The Independent's sports editor Ed Malyon to discuss that very topic as well as the fallout from this weekend's Premier League action.

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