La Liga Hangover: Barcelona and Depor Go Back to the Future, Atletico Title Talk

Welcome to La Liga Hangover, a weekly column running throughout the season in which we take a light-hearted, though in-depth, look at the key stories and talking points from the most recent weekend of action in Spanish football's top flight. With a focus on the biggest teams, such as Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Barcelona, and a worthwhile nod toward the rest, we take a look at how the league is shaping up each week and what to look out for going forward.

Last Season Looks on and Laughs

Now we're not saying history repeats itself or anything, but there's a bit of a theme developing here.

Last season: Xavi departed Barcelona and the Camp Nou by winning the title and getting an emotional send-off, but the final game ended in a 2-2 draw against Deportivo La Coruna...after Lionel Messi had scored the opener and Barca led 2-0 before a comeback was started by Lucas Perez. Saturday...sounds familiar?

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Last season: Eibar had a tremendous start, were still in the top half approaching Christmas and then...well, suffered one of the worst drop-offs of all time, ending in 18th and surviving relegation only because of Elche's demotion. Their great start this year—seventh in mid-November with 19 points from 15 games—has tailed off recently, and they haven't won in four. They are down to 10th as a result.

Last season: Villarreal and Celta Vigo were the exciting, offensive-minded sides challenging for the top four, just as they are this term, and one of the former team's stars was Denis Cheryshev, on loan from Real Madrid. He, of course, was at the centre of Real Madrid being thrown out of the Copa del Rey recently for fielding the Russian when suspended—with Real's president Florentino Perez trying to shift blame to Villarreal for not informing them about the situation, per Goal. This weekend? Villarreal beat Real, leaving them five points off the title race...with Cheryshev not even on the bench.

A quick word for Celta, who have bucked the trend and broken the barriers separating this year from last: A win over Barcelona in November of last year was followed by a catastrophic run of 10 Liga games without victory. This year they battered Barcelona 4-1—but have won four and drawn three of their 10 fixtures since then.

Progress!

Jornada 15 Results

Getafe 1-1 Real Sociedad

Barcelona 2-2 Deportivo La Coruna

Celta Vigo 1-0 Espanyol

Levante 1-2 Granada

Sevilla 2-0 Sporting Gijon

Las Palmas 1-0 Real Betis

Rayo Vallecano 1-2 Malaga

Eibar 1-1 Valencia

Atletico Madrid 2-1 Athletic Club

Villarreal 1-0 Real Madrid 

Atletico: We Warned You

Eight wins in a row in all competitions and seven wins from eight in La Liga: Atletico Madrid are joint top of Spain's top flight, having gradually pegged back the points on Barcelona since the start of October.

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Diego Simeone's men are on a fabulous run of form, key players have found top gear after slow or inconsistent starts—see Koke and Diego Godin—and Antoine Griezmann is scoring with regularity to keep the points flowing. Defensive resilience gives them clean sheets, creativity in midfield and plenty of movement in attack, on and off the ball, sees them smother opponents and fashion scoring chances.

There's still a lot more to come from the team too; the clinical edge hasn't really been seen just yet, but sooner or later, everything will click in a game and Atletico will wipe the floor with a reasonable opponent by four or five goals. Perhaps then people will sit up and take a little more notice of them—but for now they seem perfectly at ease being the lesser talked-about side in the title race.

At the start of the season, they were our tip to win the title in La Liga—and we see no reason to change that opinion right now.

Goal of the Weekend

Antoine Griezmann wins the battle of the red strikes with this thunder—you know the rest.

"

Griezmann's great strike to win it for Atleti vs. Athletic on Sunday. https://t.co/XAEzcJzpLt

— Karl Matchett (@karlmatchett) December 14, 2015"

Points of Authority

A change this week: This is not our points of authority, but an appreciation of the managers on the sidelines who directed the flow of the game to their team's advantage by making changes which had a big impact.

Of course, some might say they were correcting their own mistakes from the starting XI but why be churlish on a Monday morning. Congratulations, bosses, for your big decisions.

• Friday night, Real Sociedad are trailing to Getafe. Eusebio throws on Jonathas on 64 minutes—and with his first touch he heads a knocked-down free-kick toward the far post, where Imanol Agirretxe turns home the equaliser.
• Two goals down at the Camp Nou and with striker Jonathan misfiring, Victor Sanchez made his final two subs in the space of 10 minutes, one of which saw Miguel Cardoso go up front instead of Jonathan. Cardoso was immediately a much bigger threat on goal, worked hard and laid a fine pass off for Lucas Perez to reduce the arrears—and Depor went on to draw 2-2.
• Sevilla were struggling to break down Sporting Gijon despite dominating entirely, so Unai Emery did what any reasonable man would do: He sent on his two most effective attackers during the second half. Yevhen Konoplyanka was superb, creating chance after chance, and Kevin Gameiro played the last 20 minutes and scored both goals—the second created by Konoplyanka.
• Malaga still hadn't scored away from home before the weekend, so it was a surprise to see top scorer Charles on the bench. He was introduced by Javi Gracia on 58 minutes...and scored one minute later with his second touch.
• Diego Simeone constantly preaches a work ethic from all players to go with their technical abilities, even forwards. Angel Correa is a potentially perfect embodiment of that attitude on the pitch and, 10 minutes after being brought on as a sub, it was he who closed down the Athletic defence, won back the ball and saw it rebound to Griezmann to hit the winner.

Tactical Notes

• Against the bigger clubs, Villarreal have sometimes abandoned their 4-4-2 for a 4-5-1, but there was none of that against Real Madrid. Obviously sensing the opportunity to force the upset, Marcelino paired his best two attackers and best wide options: Cedric Bakambu and Roberto Soldado up top, Jonathan dos Santos and Denis Suarez in midfield. They played extremely well in the first half while in possession and creating chances, then worked tremendously in a defensive sense after the break.
• Other than the three in attack being allowed to roam, it's hard to see how Real Madrid's 4-3-3 benefits the team given the lack of work rate off the ball in the centre. The 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 from earlier in the campaign continues to see them look more dangerous and consistent, but it is rarely being seen.

Good Week, Bad Week

The Good

MALAGA! December 13, 15 games into the season...and they finally scored their first goal away from home this season. We remarked in the Guide it could happen at Rayo and Charles finally did it, before Duje Cop—booked for trying to win a penalty in the first half—hit the winner three minutes from time.

Bruno Soriano was particularly monstrous in Villarreal's win over Real, while Jonathan dos Santos and Matteo Musacchio both deserve nods, too.

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Las Palmas' winner over Real Betis came 130 seconds into injury time. Cue madcap scenes of elation and belief.

Lucas Perez scored again to make it six consecutive Liga games finding the back of the net. It's 11 goals and two assists for him now this term.

Teenage Venezuelan forward Penaranda has made the breakthrough into Granada's first team in recent weeks and scored his first two goals in La Liga this weekend to win the battle at the bottom. He looks a tremendous prospect—powerful, fast, confident in the dribble and keen to shoot on sight—so keep an eye on the 18-year-old over the remainder of the term.

The Bad

A particularly card-happy weekend saw four players sent off: Pablo Hernandez of Celta, Luis Hernandez of Sporting and two from the Eibar vs. Valencia match, Ivan Ramis and Lucas Orban respectively.

Levante's loss at home to Granada wasn't just bad for the one-off result, it was made comparatively worse by the fact relegation rivals Malaga and Las Palmas also picked up victories. Les Granotes are three points from safety now and bottom of the table.

Eibar, Valencia and Rayo Vallecano are the most out-of-form sides in La Liga, each without a victory in their last four matches.

Follow @karlmatchett