Cristiano Ronaldo (£7.6m) did it again last night.
And by ‘it’ we of course mean: he papered over the cracks of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s reign as Man United manager with a morale-boosting late goal in the Champions League.
The five-time Ballon d’Or winner has scored in each of his three European appearances since returning to Old Trafford.
In Dream Team terms, nearly half (46.9% to be exact) of the Portuguese forward’s points have come in the Champions League and that got us thinking: which players have racked up the most points in Europe’s premier continental competition so far this season?
Jorginho (£2.5m) – 18 points
Something of an underwhelming start to this list because 100% of the Italian’s points came against Malmo last night thanks to two penalties.
The Ballon d’Or nominee pretty much exclusively scores spot-kicks these days and a brace of them at Stamford Bridge, on top of no fewer than eight tackles, was enough to land him the Star Man award, resulting in an 18-point haul.
Bruno Fernandes (£6.3m) – 20 points
Unlike Jorginho, Man United’s midfield talisman has spread his points across all three European outings.
Fernandes has provided an assist in each Champions League game in 2021/22, securing 7+ ratings across the board.
He’s made this list because scooped the Star Man award (and Uefa’s Player of the Match gong) following the Red Devils’ second-half comeback against Atalanta.
20 points from three games without scoring a goal is a great effort.
Andreas Christensen (£4.2m) – 21 points
The Denmark international opened the scoring against Malmo and paired it with a clean sheet to bank 13 points.
Like most of his team-mates he blanked against Juventus but pocketed a routine eight points against Zenit St Petersburg last month.
Christensen has 52 points overall, making him the third-best defender Dream Team has to offer right now – his ownership is a very modest 2.5%.
Cristiano Ronaldo (£7.6m) – 23 points
The inspiration for this list, we detailed his Champions League exploits in the intro.
Curiously, he’s yet to claim a Star Man award in his favourite competition despite his heroics.
Riyad Mahrez (£5.4m) – 29 points
Predominantly a benchwarmer in the Premier League this season, the Algerian winger has thoroughly enjoyed himself on the European stage.
Having seemingly established himself as Man City’s first-choice penalty-taker when on the pitch, Mahrez ran amok against RB Leipzig and Club Bruges either side of a 7+ rating against PSG, scoring three goals and bagging 29 points in the process.
Mahrez has generally saved his best form for the Champions League in recent times – he famously scored three goals across two legs in the semi-finals last season.
Mohamed Salah (£7.3m) – 36 points
Of course, who else would be leading the way?
Dream Team’s overall top points scorer (by a long way) and the man many believe to be the outright best player in the world at the moment.
Milan got away lightly as they only conceded once to the Egyptian whereas Porto and Atletico Madrid shipped two each.
Only Ajax’s Sebastien Haller has scored more Champions League goals this season and all credit to the former West Ham striker considering Salah is averaging a goal every 48 minutes.
The scary thing is, Liverpool’s No11 could have had even more points at this stage had he not narrowly missed out on the Star Man award against Porto to Curtis Jones (£2.5m).