La Liga Winners and Losers from Week 31: Real Madrid Close Gap as Barcelona Slip
Now we're into the final stretch of the season, every point and match won can make a critical difference as teams chase their objectives, from a title challenge to a top-four finish and, of course, avoiding relegation.
Gameweek 31 in La Liga saw 30 goals scored in the nine matches, with just Valencia against Levante—a derby—left to come on Monday night. We have taken a look at the results and assessed who came off best in each area of the table, how clusters of clubs were affected and who holds the edge in the different battles between clubs.
Here are all our major winners and losers from the top flight in Spain, with greater importance placed on Gameweek 31 but also taking note of what happened in the midweek round of fixtures.
Winners: Real Madrid, Closing the Gap
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First up we look at the title fight and Real Madrid, who changed the team around somewhat and picked up a fairly straightforward 3-0 win over Eibar.
Suspensions and the odd injury meant Carlo Ancelotti brought in a few fringe players from the start, including Jese Rodriguez and Javier Hernandez, both of whom found the net in addition to top goalscorer Cristiano Ronaldo. The result came on the back of Real's 2-0 win over Rayo Vallecano in midweek. They remain in second place but have narrowed the gap at the top of the table to just two points.
After a turbulent opening couple of months to 2015, Real have now strung three straight wins together in the league and look set to make a fierce challenge on two fronts.
Losers: Barcelona, Uncharacteristically Letting a Solid Lead Slip
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Barcelona showed in midweek they could showboat and see off the smaller teams with swagger and style, thumping Almeria 4-0. However, after dominating a much better side in Sevilla over the weekend and leading at the break, they threw away the points in the second half.
A two-goal lead was squandered by the Catalans, drawing 2-2 in the end. That's not a bad result in isolation, given they were up against a confident Sevilla side who were behind only Barca as the most in-form team in La Liga before kick-off, but it represents two points dropped in light of the position Barcelona had put themselves in initially.
Lionel Messi and Neymar scored the early goals before Claudio Bravo failed to keep out an Ever Banega strike and Kevin Gameiro notched a late equaliser. Barcelona stay top, but the gap has shortened and the margin for mistakes grows ever smaller.
Winners: Celta Vigo, Big Scorers and Free-Flowing Football
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Followers of our weekly Liga storylines column will know we tipped Celta Vigo against Rayo Vallecano to be the game to watch this weekend—and so it was, for excitement, attacking play and goals, as Celta ran out 6-1 victors.
Celta battled all the way against Barcelona the previous weekend and drew in Granada in midweek. This weekend's performance, back on home soil, was much more the type we have come to expect from Celta under Eduardo Berizzo: easy on the eye, hard-working in attack and very slick in possession.
Young forward Santi Mina took advantage of a rare start to crack in no fewer than four goals, and Joaquin Larrivey scored a brace. All that came after Rayo had taken the lead inside the opening 60 seconds.
Losers: Villarreal, Whose Season Has Imploded
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Rewind two months and Villarreal were one of the most exciting sides in La Liga, a team with plenty to look forward to and reason to suspect they could end the season on a positive note—they were in the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey, fighting to reach the latter stages of the Europa League and challenging for the top four.
Since the beginning of March, though, it has been one long downhill slope for the Yellow Submarine, taking just one win from 10 games across the three competitions.
Out of both cups, they were hammered at home in league play during midweek and followed that up by drawing at Getafe over the weekend.
It has been a very poor run, with just two goals scored in their last six games, and the end of the season can't come quickly enough. They need to pick up, though, otherwise their place in Europa League football next term could be in jeopardy.
Winners: Relegation Battlers Picking Up Points
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At the wrong end of the table, the bottom seven have all been in a mini-league of their own; six having been there most of the campaign and Eibar gradually joining them over the last three months after a dreadful second half of the season.
Over midweek and this weekend, however, four of the bottom seven picked up one victory, meaning lots of changing around in places as each game finished in turn.
Elche, Levante and Almeria picked up perhaps the most important wins, as they beat direct rivals, and three teams are now level on 28 points, with Eibar and Elche just ahead on 31.
Deportivo La Coruna, who changed managers during the week, did not win but also did not lose, drawing twice to keep the points ticking over and their name above the dotted line.
Losers: Cordoba, All but Gone, and Granada, Now Cut Adrift
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Cordoba and Granada were the big losers in the relegation zone, falling further back from safety over the course of the last two matches.
Bottom club Cordoba held Depor to a 1-1 draw in midweek, but in a second consecutive game against direct relegation rivals, they lost 2-0 at home to Elche on Sunday. Still only on 19 points, they are nine from safety and look anything but capable of making up that ground.
Just above them, Granada held Celta to a draw in midweek but then lost heavily, 3-0, to Almeria, who sat one place above them. The four-point gap to the cluster of sides above them now looks particularly tough to claw back, with the teams from 14th to 18th all picking up at least one point more than Granada over the last five matches.
With Sevilla and Valencia their next two opponents, that gap could get insurmountably bigger very quickly.
