La Liga Winners and Losers: Barcelona Go 11 in a Row, Atletico Madrid Slip Up
La Liga's most recent game week, 23, brought a number of important victories for teams in all stages of the league table—and a few shock results too.
With just 15 matches left to play this season, points are valuable commodities and every slip-up at this stage makes seasonal objectives just a little harder to come by, so consistency is all important for all 20 teams.
Here are our biggest winners and losers of the weekend.
Winners: Barcelona's Turn to Show Real Force
1 of 6
Barcelona romped to an easy 5-0 win over Levante on Sunday, taking their run of successive wins to 11 in all competitions.
Another Lionel Messi hat-trick was added to by Neymar—his 17th league strike of the campaign—and Luis Suarez, as they kept up the pressure on league leaders Real Madrid. With the Champions League set to return soon and winnable games against the likes of Rayo Vallecano, Malaga and Granada coming up domestically, it could be a fantastic second half of the season to watch for Luis Enrique and co.
With squad players such as Marc Bartra, Adriano and Pedro all playing their part in this game, the squad looks in good shape for the three-pronged challenge ahead.
Losers: Atleti Losing the Ground They Made Up
2 of 6
Atletico won massive acclaim last time out for beating Real Madrid 4-0, closing up the title race and putting themselves in a great position in the process...but that was undone this weekend as they suffered a 2-0 defeat at Celta Vigo.
Of course it was unlikely they'd go through the whole rest of the season without another loss, but coming so soon after that derby win it will be a tough result for Atleti to accept, along with the listless performance and the fact that Celta have been in poor form themselves.
Atleti are now back to seven points off the leaders.
Winners: Narrowing Down the Champions League Race
3 of 6
The top-four race has been incredibly exciting all season long; after the big three, there were initially four teams who were all fighting for the fourth and final Champions League spot for next season.
Malaga fell away first, shortly after the winter break ended, and while Villarreal have been performing extremely well of late, they suffered a shock 2-0 defeat to Rayo Vallecano this weekend. That left the way clear for Valencia and Sevilla to open up a gap, and they responded perfectly.
Sevilla won 3-0 at home to Cordoba, with Valencia taking the points after a 1-0 victory over Getafe thanks to a second-half Alvaro Negredo penalty. Villarreal are six points off fourth now, but with just two between Los Che and the Rojiblancos, there's plenty of life left in the top-four race.
Losers: Relegation Strugglers Falling to Regular Defeats
4 of 6
Down at the bottom, the weekly struggle for points has meant plenty of positional changes and switches in the bottom three—but as we noted before the weekend, Gameweek 23 could have been the one to finally open things up.
That seems to have been the case, too, not quite the five points which would have been the worst-case scenario for the bottom three, but conceivably four, which is still significant.
Almeria took a point off Real Sociedad and Elche play Monday night to out-of-form Eibar, but all the other bottom-rung clubs had a bad weekend. Cordoba were beaten by three, Levante by five and Getafe by a single goal. Even Deportivo La Coruna, on the edge of the top half a week ago, are back down in the mix after losing to Real Madrid.
Granada took a point at home to Athletic Bilbao, 0-0, but it's not enough to get them out of the drop zone and they, along with Levante and Cordoba, will be praying for a result for Eibar on Monday night.
Winners: Opening the Gap in the Middle of the Table
5 of 6
Looking further up the table into the middle collection of sides, Espanyol and Celta Vigo have been the big winners over recent weeks.
Espanyol beat Malaga 2-0 away from home to record a third win in five, a fifth win in nine—the sort of reasonable consistency in point-taking which is enough to push them well into the top half and away from the chasing pack.
Celta's win over Atleti was their third in a row unbeaten after that torrid goalless spell spanning November to January, and they will also hope things are back on the upward path now. Elsewhere, Rayo's vital win over Atleti pushes them to 11th, but they need more consistency themselves to not have lingering relegation worries yet.
Opportunity for Being Winners: Elche's Monday Night Game
6 of 6
The final game of the match week sees Eibar host Elche on Monday night. Eibar remain in the top half, 10th place, despite three defeats in a row. After a tremendous first half of the season, the pressure is just beginning to build on them to see if they can sustain results, or if a big drop down the table is on the cards—as has already started with Espanyol and Celta rediscovering form.
Elche, though, are one point and one place above the drop zone, and it is they who could have the big say on the relegation race.
An Elche win opens a four-point gap between the bottom three and safety and would begin to put real pressure on those sides to find results, quickly. After three wins in their last five, Elche are definitely the in-form side out of the two to play on Monday night and continuing that run would be a massive boost to their survival hopes.
