Champions League Round-Up

Didier Drogba started for Chelsea on Wednesday

It wasn't the best week was it for the English clubs in the Champions League? Alex Johnson rounds it all up for us.

It was not a great first round of Champions League group fixtures for the English teams, as only Liverpool tasted victory.

However, that win left more questions than answers about Liverpool's current state of affairs. They needed a stoppage-time penalty from Steven Gerrard to overcome Ludogorets Razgrad 2-1, but it was a laboured performance from Brendan Rodgers' side.

In the absence of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, Liverpool look fairly toothless up front. Against the Bulgarian champions too many of their star names were ineffective and they were lucky Simon Mignolet didn't cost his side two points after charging out of his goal and making it easy for Dani Abalo to get the equaliser. Liverpool join Real Madrid on three points in Group B after the defending champions thrashed Basel 5-1.

Chelsea made a shaky start to their Champions League adventure as they were held to a surprise 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge by Schalke. The Blues had looked in imperious form this season, while the Germans had endured a nightmare start domestically, but Schalke got a deserved point in the end. Didier Drogba started the game with seven-goal striker Diego Costa on the bench and he looked nowhere near as sharp as the Spanish ace.

However, Chelsea fans might take heart from the fact their side have been slow starters in the Champions League recently and lost their opening group game last year but went on to reach the semi-final stage. Next up for Chelsea is a game with Sporting Lisbon, who drew 1-1 with Maribor.

While Chelsea got a point against German opposition, it was a different story for both Arsenal and Manchester City as they lost to Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich respectively. The Gunners were over-run by Dortmund and lucky to just lose by two in the end - they could easily have conceded five or six. Goals from Ciro Immobile and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang sealed the win but Dortmund created so many clear-cut chances that they should have punished Arsenal even more. Arsene Wenger's side were terrible in defence and never really caused that much panic to their hosts. They need to bounce back from this devastating loss next time out against Galatasaray, who played out a 1-1 draw with Anderlecht.

Man City looked like they had done enough to get a point in the Allianz Arena until a former defender came back to haunt them. Jerome Boateng's half-volley in the 90th minute took a slight deflection off Mario Gotze to hand the game to Bayern. City were thankful to Joe Hart for long periods as the England number one pulled off a number of top-class saves to keep out the Germans. It looked like he was going to be City's saviour but he could do nothing about Boateng's shot and was unlucky to be beaten by a deflection in the end. Sergio Aguero came agonisingly close to getting an equaliser in injury time, but that might have been unjust on Bayern, who dominated long periods and deserved the win. The other game in Group E saw Roma enjoy a dream start as they beat CSKA Moscow 5-1.

Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain are the front-runners in Group F, but things didn't stick to the script in their opening games. Barcelona scraped past Apoel Nicosia thanks to a Gerard Pique header, while Ajax sneaked a point off PSG. Elsewhere in the first round of games, there were victories for Zenit St Petersburg at Benfica in Group C, while Monaco beat Bayer Leverkusen. Olympiacos shocked last season's beaten finalists Atletico Madrid 3-2 in Group A and sit level with Juventus on three points after the Italians beat Malmo. In Group H, Porto hammered BATE Borisov 6-0 while Athletic Bilbao and Shakhtar played out a 0-0 draw.