There have been a lot of caveats since the summer. “Let’s see Liverpool play someone good,” we said. They did. They won. “Let’s see how they react to defeat,” we said. They lost to Nottingham Forest. Then they won again. “All right,” we said, “Let’s see how they balance the Premier League and the Champions League, playing the best teams in the world without skipping a beat.” They just beat Real Madrid. Comfortably. If they beat Manchester City on Sunday, we’ll be all out of caveats. James Pearce was at Anfield for us. He’ll tell you how good they are.  Jacob Tanswell was at Villa Park where he saw Villa’s seventh game without a win. But he says, quite rightly I feel, that their 0-0 draw with Juventus was a positive result.  And I asked Producer Si to pick a game to watch. He chose…wisely. He got to watch Monaco and Benfica. We’ve got that and all the rest of the football all here in a tightly compressed audio file for your delectation.  Presenter: Iain Macintosh With: James Pearce, Jacob Tanswell and Si Watts  Producer: Si Watts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices