La Liga Review: We have a title race on our hands

We have a title race on our hands, but it’s the old Barcelona-Real Madrid shootout for top spot. That was because Barcelona won away, Madrid were held at home and Atletico drew in Sevilla. Meaning, their title defence is all over bar the kicking and screaming.

Barca followed up their win in Manchester by grinding out a 3-1 victory away to relegation-threatened Granada. Croatian Ivan Rakitic gave the Catalans the lead in the 25th minute.

Jordi Alba lofted the ball in behind the static home defence for Luis Suarez to run onto, the Uruguayan saw his shot saved by the feet of the keeper, but as Cala couldn’t clear Rakitic was on hand to side-foot the ball into the empty net. Barcelona, who had the vast percentage of possession, added a second just after the half-time interval.

From Dani’s Alves’ throw-in, he and Ivan Rakitic played a lovely one-two before Suarez beat the keeper with a low finish. Granada halved the deficit in the 53rd minute. Lass Bangoura used his trickery and pace to run at Marc Bartra in the box, the defender tripped him, giving Fran Rico the opportunity to blast home from 12 yards – he took it with ease. As the home side pushed forward looking for the equaliser they were caught on the break, Rakitic and Suarez combined again – this time the latter rolled the ball to Messi, who sealed the game with a tap-in.

That result put the pressure on both Madrid sides, and they both could only pick up one point each in their fixtures against Sevilla and Villarreal. Atleti kicked off in the earlier game. Simeone’s men lacked any sort of creativity and looked very one-paced. Unai Emery’s Sevilla side will have been disappointed only to come away with a point.

Real Madrid like Atleti could only draw 1-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu with Villarreal. It took until the second half for the deadlock to be broken. Eric Bailly hauled Ronaldo down inside the area and the referee pointed to the spot. Ronaldo got up, dusted himself down and fired the penalty straight down the middle.

Villarreal’s leveller came just 12 minutes later. A cross from the left fell to Gerardo Moreno, the midfielder played a neat one-two with Luciano Vietto before rifling a low shot beyond the reach of Iker Casillas into the bottom corner.

Elsewhere, Valencia capitalised on Atletico’s slip-up beating Real Sociedad 2-0 earlier in the day. Two second-half Pablo Piatti goals means Los Che are on course to finish in the top four, and they may even catch Atletico for third place.

Malaga won again to propel them closer to the Europa League spots, this time in a five-goal thriller against Getafe. Juanmi gave them the lead inside 10 minutes, but Alvaro Vazquez cancelled it out in the 55th minute.

It only took them two minutes to regain the lead when Sergi Darder found the net; Ricardo Horta then made it 3-1 just 12 minutes later. Vazquez scored a second with 14 minutes to go, but Malaga held on for the three points, leaving them four points behind sixth-placed Villarreal.


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