La Liga Hangover: Advantage Barcelona in Title Race, Bottom Clubs Impress
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 examine how the league is shaping up each week and what to look out for going forward.
Barcelona's Best Worst Weekend
It's funny how things work out sometimes.
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By half-time at La Rosaleda, Barcelona were scurrying back into the safety of the dressing room, doubtless grateful for not having been given a spanking of the kind they dish out on a regular basis. Malaga were the better side, but they were as wasteful in front of goal as Barcelona were with their own passing.
Luis Enrique criticised his team's display as the worst first half since he had been in charge, per Marca:
"It'd be hard to play a poorer first half. We made no end of mistakes, struggled throughout and things just went from bad to worse.
We struggled throughout and were inferior to Málaga in the first half. They created plenty of chances, most of them on the back of our own mistakes.
We can't seem to put in a good overall performance, from start to finish, against Málaga.
"
By the end of the weekend, a 2-1 win had put Barca back on top of the table, with a game in hand, and had seen them extend the gap between themselves and Real Madrid—that's the first time weekend results have coincided in that fashion in six weeks.
Atletico Madrid, meanwhile, drew 0-0 with Sevilla, which is hardly a disastrous result but also not a fantastic one, given Atleti played at home, against 10 men for half an hour and that Sevilla haven't won away yet this season.
It puts the reigning champions firmly back in the driving seat in the title race—but nobody at the Camp Nou will be getting carried away.
The very next league game could be decisive, though: at home to Atletico Madrid. Win that as well as the game in hand, and Barcelona will be six clear of Atleti and seven clear of Real at a minimum.
The Malaga game was a dreadful Barcelona performance—but a title-winning team's ability to win nonetheless, perhaps.
Jornada 21 Results
Sporting Gijon 5-1 Real Sociedad
Malaga 1-2 Barcelona
Espanyol 2-2 Villarreal
Granada 3-2 Getafe
Rayo Vallecano 3-0 Celta Vigo
Athletic Club 5-2 Eibar
Atletico Madrid 0-0 Sevilla
Deportivo La Coruna 1-1 Valencia
Real Betis 1-1 Real Madrid
Levante vs. Las Palmas, 7:30 p.m. KO (GMT) Monday
Relegation Battle Wakes Up
There are arguably eight sides—13th down to 20th—who are "in" the relegation battle, but the probable outcome is that the current bottom five will provide the three who go down: Granada, Rayo Vallecano, Las Palmas, Sporting Gijon and Levante.
Before this weekend's round of matches, the bottom eight had won a combined three games from the last four Jornadas—so three from 32 between them, an appalling return given the importance of taking points, not least of all against each other, and a big indication as to why they occupy those positions.
That all changed this time out as Granada, Rayo and Sporting all picked up fantastic wins, and another one could yet join them.
Levante vs. Las Palmas is now a huge game on Monday night, with the home team having signed Giuseppe Rossi—improbably—on loan in the past week. If they lose, they'll be five points from safety, but a win means all eight sides are within five points of each other, concertinaing the bottom end of the table.
Sporting's battering of Real Sociedad deserves mentioning, a game which began with a goal less than 20 seconds after kick-off and continued in a similar fashion thereafter.
Points of Authority
- Atletico take the old adage "if you can't win, make sure you don't lose" very seriously. They haven't conceded in their last five Liga games and have conceded just twice in the last 990 minutes of league football in Spain.
- The three Basque sides conceded a total of 12 goals between them this weekend—five apiece for Eibar and Real Sociedad.
- Speaking of La Real, at what point do we awkwardly point out that since David Moyes' sacking, Eusebio Sacristan has won only three of his 12 games? His 25 per cent win ratio so far is worse than Moyes' 29 per cent ratio over his entire reign at Anoeta...
Tactical Notes
- James Rodriguez was used in a Gareth Bale position, but he did not play a Gareth Bale role. The Colombian cut inside frequently from the right and looked to float over crosses or play in Danilo/Dani Carvajal on the overlap, but it wasn't effective.
- Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane has kept exactly to 4-3-3 throughout his time so far. His subs against Betis were completely like-for-like in positional terms: Carvajal for Danilo at right-back and Jese for James at right wing.
- Athletic vs. Eibar saw both teams play exactly to type: the home side aggressive and looking to deliver from deep into the box at every opportunity; the away side pressing in numbers and counter-attacking at pace. All four Athletic goals aside from the late own goal came from either crosses from wide or set piece deliveries—while both Eibar's goal and the winning of their penalty came from challenging deep in midfield and then surging forward.
Good Week, Bad Week
The Good
Antonio Adan, take a bow. The former Real Madrid back-up goalkeeper was stupendous against his old club, denying them with saves, brave blocks, excellent aerial work and fine distribution. A huge performer, unlucky not to get a clean sheet.
Nineteen-year-old Antonio Sanabria has nine goals in 14 games for Sporting this season, with seven coming in his last six—including two hat-tricks.
Borja Baston ended on the losing side, but the Eibar forward netted twice to take his tally for the campaign to 14. He's the highest-scoring Spaniard in La Liga, and Vicente del Bosque has mentioned him as one of a few players with an outside chance of making the UEFA Euro 2016 squad.
Rayo kept their first clean sheet in La Liga since October 23—three months and 12 games later.
The Bad
Valencia watch: Once again, they remain in 11th. It's now 79 days since they won in La Liga and 84 days since they kept a clean sheet in the Primera Division.
Barcelona's first-half performance vs. Malaga.
Celta Vigo's utter collapse of form of late, with Nolito injured and Augusto Fernandez gone. They look so horribly exposed in the centre of the park; better get new signing Marcelo Diaz fit and involved as fast as possible or another huge fall down the table beckons, just like last season.
Real Sociedad's all-round ineptitude, but with particular mention for Geronimo Rulli. The goalkeeper fumbled the first goal seconds after kick-off and was poor for two of Sanabria's goals.
The Ugly
A special note for the abysmal officiating between Real Betis and Real Madrid.
Juan Martinez Munuera—the official who brandished 11 yellows and two reds between Barcelona and Espanyol in the Copa del Rey recently—and his assistants managed to get almost every major decision wrong in the match at Estadio Benito Villamarin on Sunday.
Real Madrid were denied an incredibly obvious penalty in the first half when Karim Benzema was trodden on inside the box—and the ref repeated the trick when Raphael Varane did the same to Ruben Castro at the opposite end. Cristiano Ronaldo should have been sent off for the second week in succession for kicking out an opponent in an off-the-ball incident...and to top it all off, Real's equaliser was clearly offside.
