Liverpool close to perfection - who else shone in Champions League?

Liverpool may have missed out on perfection but Arne Slot's side still topped the Champions League league phase table.

Having won their opening seven games, defeat by PSV Eindhoven prevented the Reds from becoming the competition's 14th team to win all of their group-stage games in a season.

Liverpool remain one of the favourites to win the Champions League title and will find out their potential last-16 opponents on Friday.

So which clubs are in the best place to stop them?

Who scored the most goals, who conceded the fewest, who's in red-hot form, and which team are the dirtiest?

The English Premier League was the league phase's strongest division.

Three of the Premier League's four teams - Liverpool, Arsenal and Aston Villa - finished in the top eight and went straight into the last 16.

The other, Manchester City, sneaked into the play-off round with a final-day win over Club Brugge.

Spain's La Liga was the only other league who had multiple teams advance straight to the last 16.

Barcelona and Atletico Madrid finished in the top eight while record winners Real Madrid settled for a play-off spot.

Three out of the five Italian Serie A clubs made the play-offs, with Inter Milan into the last 16 and Bologna eliminated.

Lille were the only French side to finish in the top eight, as Paris St-Germain, Monaco and Brest made the play-offs.

And, of the Bundesliga teams, Stuttgart and RB Leipzig were eliminated. Bayer Leverkusen finished sixth while Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund are ones to avoid in the play-offs.

With more teams and more matches a record 470 goals were scored across the league phase, smashing the previous group-stage best of 308 set in 2019.

Barcelona scored the most with 28 league-phase strikes, again a group-stage record, which they took with a game to spare.

Fuelled by Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha (more on them later) the five-time winners netted in all of their matches, hitting four or more against Bayern Munich, Benfica, Young Boys and Red Star Belgrade.

The highest scoring match was Bayern Munich's opening day 9-2 win over Dinamo Zagreb.

But the German giants slowed their scoring and only hit 11 goals across their next seven games.

Atletico Madrid recorded the league phase's biggest away win by smashing Sparta Prague 6-0 on matchday five.

Goals were plentiful. If you attended a league-phase match you had over a 94.4% chance of seeing one.

There were 144 games in total and only eight of them ended in a 0-0 draw.

Barcelona's Lewandowski and Borussia Dortmund's Serhou Guirassy are the competition's top scorers with nine goals each.

Both of them were unable to topple Cristiano Ronaldo's group-stage goalscoring record of 11 goals in six games for Real Madrid in 2015-16, however.

Atalanta were heavily reliant on Belgium midfielder Charles de Ketelaere, who created the most assists with five.

De Ketelaere also scored four times and was directly involved in almost half of his side's goals (nine of 20).

Nobody had more goal involvements than Raphinha though, who boasted eight strikes and four assists.

In total, 34 players played every minute of their side's league-phase campaign.

Despite losing 9-2 to Bayern Munich in their opening match, Dinamo Zagreb managed to avoid having the league phase's leakiest defence, and even kept clean sheets against Red Bull Salzburg and Celtic.

The unwanted most goals conceded title was shared between Red Bull Salzburg and Slovan Bratislava who let in 27 goals - again, a record for a Champions League group stage.

Bratislava stuck with Dominik Takac between the posts with the keeper one of the 34 who played every minute.

Inter Milan had the meanest defence, conceding just one goal, against Bayer Leverkusen on matchday six.

Goalkeeper Jan Sommer started all of their games.

In terms of reds, Monaco, Lille and Juventus all had two each.

Bologna received the most yellow cards (30) with AC Milan and Real Madrid having the second most (26).

Manchester City received the fewest cards with 10 yellows. They also committed the fewest fouls (61).

Lastly, a look at form. After opening their campaign with two defeats from three matches, Atletico Madrid have since been on the competition's longest winning run (five games).

In contrast, Sporting Lisbon started strong but ended up reaching the play-offs on goal difference and have lost three and drawn one of their past four.

This season, 11 points and a goal difference of -6 across eight games was enough to avoid elimination.

Watch highlights of every Champions League game from 22:00 on Wednesday on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app.

There will also be a Champions League Match of the Day on BBC One on Wednesday, from 22:40 to 00:00.