Madrid in mourning
A draw in the first Madrid derby to be played at the Wanda Metropolitano benefitted neither side, and only handed Barcelona further impetus in the league.
The Catalans are now a lofty 10 points ahead of both Atleti and Real after they fought out an entertaining goalless draw on Saturday night.
Antoine Greizmann’s substitution provided the main talking point of the night, and he’ll be troubled by drawing another blank in 2017/18. Ditto Benzema and Ronaldo, the latter guilty of missing a gilt-edged chance to win it late on.
Perhaps of more pressing concern for Real is Sergio Ramos’ broken nose and Nacho’s yellow card which rules him out of the Malaga game. If Ramos can’t play in that fixture, it would mean a hitherto untried centre-back pairing of Jesus Vallejo and Raphael Varane, although luckily for Los Blancos, their opponents are La Liga’s bottom club and in awful form, as their placing would suggest.
In the meantime, Messrs. Simeone and Zidane have much work to do at two clubs that have a funereal atmosphere about them at present.
Suarez at the double
It’s been a long time coming for Luis Suarez, but his double against Leganes can’t be understated.
No opponent has scored there in the last five, and it was also five games since the Uruguayan’s last goal, against Atletico Madrid.
Both sides produced energetic performances throughout, and Barca had Marc-Andre ter Stegen to thank on more than one occasion for keeping the hosts at bay.
Paulinho’s goal, the Catalans’ third, put the gloss on a performance that was neither poor nor brilliant. What the win does do however, is keep Barcelona at the top of the table even if they lose at Valencia next week.
It’s a game they’ll have to play without Gerard Pique after a silly yellow card at Butarque ensured a suspension.
Angel is heaven sent for Getafe
Sacked by Alaves in the not too distant past, Jose Bordalas and his Getafe side took the ultimate revenge on their visitors in the Saturday afternoon kick-off.
With Alaves desperate for points to lift them away from the relegation zone, going two goals behind in the opening 10 minutes thanks to Markel Bergara and Jorge Molina wasn’t in the script.
Try as they might, the Basques weren’t at the races and that has to be a worry for Gianni de Biasi and his squad, who remain on six points with the joint worst goal scoring record in the division.
Two goals in 11 second-half minutes from Angel sealed the visitors’ fate, their consolation from Santos on 81 barely raising a ripple of applause.
Nolito back to haunt Celta
It was written before the game wasn’t it. The old boy, back to haunt his previous employers.
Mind you, that description applies as much to Sevilla coach Eduardo Berizzo as it does to match winner Nolito.
In a hard-fought contest between two sides willing to attack at every opportunity – as expected – it’s a wonder that there weren’t more goals.
Luis Muriel will be delighted to register again, the record signing grabbing just his third goal since a 20 million euro move in the summer.
Juan Carlos Unzue can’t have too much to moan at his Celta players about, they just didn’t get the rub of the green on the day.
#SevillaFC 2-1 @RCCelta
#vamosmisevilla #SevillaFCCelta
Malaga off the bottom
It’s been a long time coming, but Malaga’s battling second win of the season, against Deportivo, will give them something to hang onto as they head to the Santiago Bernabeu.
The three points have taken Los Boquerones off of the bottom of the table and Depor have only themselves to blame after taking a second-half lead in the game.
Roberto Rosales’ opener for the hosts got La Rosaleda to its feet, but the joy was short-lived as Lucas Perez equalised just eight minutes later.
The roles were reversed just after half-time, Fabian Schar putting the visitors ahead on 52, only for Gonzalo Castro to tie things up again 11 minutes later.
With time running out, former Swansea man, Borja Baston, got on the end of Juanpi’s assist to hand Michel’s team the victory.
