After the dreaded International break in October, we return to frenetic club action with all the leagues in action and plenty of goals.
Normal service returns for four of Europe's giants while another two heavyweights ground out an interesting draw. We have a new leader in England, a continuing surprise in Spain and three teams who extended their good starts in Holland while one of the country's biggest clubs absolutely crushed the other one in Belgium.
Come this way for the latest helping of the Euro Football Wrap.
France:
Kevin Gameiro's hat-trick paced PSG atop the Ligue 1 table as the three title favourites all won by identical margins, 3-1. While PSG saw off promoted Ajaccio in Corsica, Lyon beat rock bottom Nancy at home. Michel Bastos scored twice either side of a Bafetimbi Gomis strike to polish off the visitors from Lorraine, who got a late consolation from Jo-Gook Jung.
Lille's saw off a plucky Auxerre side away, who had taken the lead through Dennis Oliech before goals from Dimitri Payet, Ireneusz Jelen and a late penalty from Mathieu Debouchy sealed the points. Toulouse lost some ground as they were held to a goalless draw by visiting Marseille, as they slip to sixth.
The real humdinger of the round was Montpellier's 5-3 win over Dijon, in a result that keeps Montpellier in second place, ahead of Lyon on goal difference. After Benjamin Corgnet had scored a double to put the visiting team 2-0 ahead, an Oliver Giroud hat trick as well as goals from Souleymane Camara and Steven Paulle swung the pendulum firmly towards Montpellier. A late goal from Thomas Guebert was nothing more than a consolation for an exciting Dijon side, who were beaten but not embarrassed.
The Brittany derby saw Rennes beat Lorient 2-0 while relegation fodder Valenciennes got a healthy 3-0 win over visiting Europa League participants Sochaux, with Vincent Aboubakar scoring a pair. Southern side Nice also scored a solid victory, thrashing Bordeaux 3-0 at home, as it seeks to move out of the cellar. In the other games, St. Etienne beat promoted Evian 2-1 at Gallard while Caen drew 1-1 at Brest.
PSG, Montpellier and Lyon make up the top three while defending champions Lille are now fourth. Bordeaux slips into the relegation zone, just above Ajaccio and Nancy. The bottom six clubs have just win in their last combined 30 matches. The bottom 11 clubs have just nine victories from their last combined 55 games. Top heavy.
Gameiro is now the outright scoring leader with eight goals, ahead of Gomis and Giroud who have seven each.
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Germany:
Normal service, for this season, has resumed with Bayern once again crushing a foe at the Allianz Arena in round nine. This weeks lambs to the slaughter were promoted side Hertha Berlin who went down 4-0 on Saturday, to goals from Mario Gomez, who netted a brace, Frank Ribery and Bastian Schweinsteiger. Bayern remain five points clear at the top of the table.
In the top of the table clash, defending champions Borussia Dortmund kept pace as they won 2-0 at Werder in a crucial game on Friday night. Ivan Perisic scored the opener before Patrick Owomoyela rounded out the scoring late in the game. Perisic got dismissed at the start of the second half for two yellow cards, as Dortmund had to play almost half the game with a man less.
Promoted Augsburg, Kaiserslautern and Hamburg all picked up away wins as the Bundesliga showed its parity this past week with several teams in the lower reaches punching above their weight and registered strong wins. Stuttgart saw off Hoffenheim at home, 2-0 as Shinji Okazaki and Pavel Pogrebnyak scored while Wolfsburg saw off Nurnberg 2-1 with a double from Mario Mandzukic overcoming a goal from Christian Eigler.
The much awaited clash between Bayer Leverkusen and second placed Borussia Moenchengladbach played out a 2-2 draw with Gladbach getting goals from Marco Reus and Patrick Hermann, in betwen goals from Bayer pair Stefan Reinartz and Andre Schurrle. In the late game on Sunday, Lukas Podolski scored a double to beat Hannover at home.
Behind Bayern, Gladbach, Dortmund, Stuttgart, Bremen and Schalke round out the top six as three of the top seven lost this round. Augsburg leads the relegation zone trio, ahead of Freiburg and Hamburg.
Gomez still leads Schalke's Klaas Jan-Huntelaar in the scoring charts 10 goals to eight despite the latter scoring in his team's loss.
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England:
Manchester City claimed the outright lead in England with another smooth and efficient victory, this time over visiting Aston Villa that was both comprehensive and aesthetically pleasing. While Roberto Mancini's side displayed their now usual style that sent the critics purring, it was their resilience, balance and variety that once again made the difference. Given that Manchester United shot themselves in the foot with a negative and somewhat unbalanced formation in their crunch visit to arch rivals Liverpool, City's task was to simply wrap up the game and take the three points. To quote recently deceased Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, "Just win baby".
And so they did, in sumptuous and effervescent fashion. The goals came in even spurts with Mario Balotelli, Adam Johnson and Vincent Kompany putting the Citizens up 3-0 even before an hour had been played. While Stephen Warnock scored a goal to briefly tingle the notion of a comeback. James Milner pocketed a fourth with 20 minutes to go to ensure the game was over and the points more than sealed. It was crucial and it looked very good, while allowing City to remain focussed on the task at hand despite knowing at kick off that fellow leaders United had stumbled at Anfield. City now sit alone at the top with 22 points from 8 games, with seven wins and a draw and a league leading 27 goals scored. More significantly, they have bettered United's impressive goal difference, +21 to +19. This was the sixth time City had scored three or more goals in the league this season and the fourth time it was at least four. Not since Arsenal started their invincible season, has a team looked this good, this early.
Liverpool held United to a 1-1 draw in their high stakes clash at Anfield in the early game on Saturday, as an opportunistic and somewhat lucky performance by the home team was cancelled out by a typically dogged and plucky game by United. Both teams could have conceded late penalties that were not given, as well as gone down to ten men. Charlie Adam's dive was reprehensible, but only surpassed by the unpunished challenge of Luis Suarez who took out Patrice Evra. David De Gea, however was in inspired form denying late chances from both Adam and Jordan Henderson. United avoided another defeat at Anfield but Liverpool gained a massive measure of confidence. They must hope however, that karmic retribution for dives and unpunished fouls do not come back to haunt them.
Elsewhere Robin Van Persie continued to stake his claim as one of the best strikers in the game with both goals to lead Arsenal to a win over Sunderland. Typically Arsenal, they had to wait till late in the game to put away a Sunderland side who had created little but were still tied. Newcastle and Spurs drew 2-2 in a pulsating match at St. James Park with fourth versus fifth turning out to be a real humdinger. Stoke, Chelsea and notably Bolton all won, with the latter beating Wigan away in an early season relegation six pointer. WBA won the Black Country Derby over Wolves, 2-0 with last season's top performers Chris Brunt and Peter Odemwingie both scoring - boing!
Norwich won again, summarily dismissing Swansea in a battle of promoted teams. Anthony Pilkington scored twice for the Canaries. In the remaining game, QPR and Blackburn drew 1-1 in a result that moves Rovers bottom of the league. How their owners believe the club is Europe bound in a season or two is mindboggling. United, Chelsea and Newcastle still round out the top four ahead of Liverpool and Spurs. Bolton move off the bottom rung but are still in the relegation zone with Wigan and Blackburn.
Wayne Rooney was held scoreless once again but still leads the scoring charts with nine goals, ahead of Manchester City's Sergio Aguero, who has eight.
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Spain:
It's going to take more than mere money to rise to the top in La Liga for Malaga as Levante, very much the Cinderella team in La Liga this season produced another shock, destroying the mega-rich team from Marbella 3-0 at home. Despite boasting a fraction of the finances of their well heeled visitors, plucky Levante produced another shock to see off Malag, and their pretensions on a top four place in some style as Javi Barkero, Juanlu and Aruna Kone all scored in the first half to put Levante firmly in control of the match. Admittedly Wilfred Caballero did see red for the visitors, but Levante were already leading at that stage and were good value for their win to remain in the top three.
With Barcelona and Real Madrid both storming to expected and comfortable wins, Levante are now second, tied on points with Barcelona, but trailing on goal difference. Real are a point behind with 16. Barcelona hammered Racing Santander 3-0 as a Lionel Messi double sandwiched a striker from Xavi at the Nou Camp. Real won by the same margin, beating previous leaders Real Betis 4-1 at the Bernebeu. Another hat trick from Gonzalo Higuain and a strike from Kaka came either side of a solitary consolation for Jorge Molina. Betis have now lost three on the trot after winning their first four.
With Valencia and Villarreal both stumbling to away draws, Sevilla took ful advantage seeing off bottom side Sporting Gijon 2-1 at Sanchez Pizjuan. Espanyold produced a stellar performance to win 1-0 at Rayo Vallecano as Ivorian N'Dri Romaric scored the winning goal just before the hour. Zaragoza also, won besting Sociedad in a crucial midtable match, 2-0, with Portuguese striker Helder Postiga netting both goals.
Live Villarreal and Getafe, Granada and Atletico Madrid drew goalless on the south coast in a result that keeps Granada in the relegation mire and Atleti in mid table. Behind the leading trio, Sevilla are now fourth with 15 points, one ahead of Valencia in fifth. Malaga drop to sixth with 13. Gijon, Santander and Granada are the bottom three in reverse order. Bilbao play Osasuna on Monday night.
Messi leads the scoring race with 10 goals from seven games, ahead of Higuain, who has eight.
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Italy:
A rather boring round in Italy that reminded one of the dreary nineties with five of the ten games ending in goalless draws. That's 450+ minutes of football not producing a goal. Serie A, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Sunday was the worst affected as the five borefests, were only made better once Bologna produced a good 2-0 win at Novara, with goals from Gaston Ramirez and Robert Acquafresca. However the final course was the highlight of the round as Lazio came from behind to beat local rivals Roma 2-1 in the Eternal City Derby. Pablo Osvaldo had given Roma the lead after just five minutes. However once Danish defender Simon Kjaer saw red for a professional foul, Hernanes converted the resulting penalty to draw Lazio even. Therafter, the Biancolesti took full advantage of being a man up to take charge and eventually win the game off a late goal from Miroslav Klose.
Lazio move into the top four with the win, their second on the trot and they are unbeaten in four with three wins. Roma drop back down to bottom half in 12th spot with eight points. On Saturday, Milan, the current Scudetto holders, won just their second game of the season, crushing Palermo 3-0 at the San Siro. Antonio Nocerino, Robinho and Antonio Cassano all scored for the Milanista. They remain the bottom half, sitting with eight points in 13th spot and trailing three other teams with the same haul on goal difference, however they have now won two their last two games, and an inspired Napoli aside, have looked unbeatable in their last three games. An ascent back up the table beckons.
Also on Saturday, city rivals Inter continued their nightmare start to the season to slump to their fourth defeat of the season, from jsut six games, 2-1 at Catania. After Esteban Cambiassio had given the Nerazzurri the lead from the spot, the Elephants fought back with goals from Sergio Almiron and a late penalty from Francesco Lodi, that clinched the three points. Inter hover just above the relegation zone in 17th, wth four points. New coach Claudio Ranieri has a long season ahead of him.
Rather more surprisingly, Napoli fell at home, losing 2-1 to visiting Parma. Napoli looked flat and somewhat stuck in second gear as goals from Massimo Gobi and Franceso Modesto came either side of a strike for Giuseppe Mascara. Parma looked livelier, hungrier and more determined to take the points - and it showed. With the loss, Napoli missed the chance to move ahead of Juventus into the division lead.
Juventus, who remain in first, was one of the culprits to draw goalless, at Chievo, as was second placed Udineses, who did so, away at Atalanta. Cagliari, yet another goalless point getter at Siena, moved into the top three as a result. Lazio, Napoli and Palermo round out the top six. Despite their first win of the season, Bologna remain in 17th, ahead of basement pair Lecce and Cesena.
Parma midfielder Sebastian Giovinco and Rodrigo Palacio, both of whom were held scoreless this week, lead the scoring charts with five goals each after six games.
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Russia:
It's as you were in the Russian Premier League as the top three all drew this past weekend. Top placed Zenit were held at home, goalless, by third placed Dinano. CSKA Moscow, who are second, were pegged back 2-2 at home by visiting Terek Grozny, as goals from Seydou Doumbia and Vagner Love were levelled by strikes from two goals in as many minutes from Alexander Pavlenko and Mauricio.
Third placed Lokomotiv Moscow won, to close within a couple of points of Dinamo, with a 3-0 win over visiting Tom Tomsk as Senjad Ibricic, Denis Glushakov and Dmitri Sychev potted goals from the capital club who remain on the outside looking in. Sixth placed Rubin Kazan scored an important win over fifth placed Spartak, to close to within a point of their visiting opponents, with a 3-0 win of their own. Christian Noboa, Alexander Ryazantsev and Bibras Natkho all scored.
Amkar Perm scored a huge win upsetting seventh placed side Kuban Krasnodar at home 3-1 while moneybags Anzhi travelled to Spartak Nalchik for a 1-1 draw. In other games Krasnodar beat Rostov 2-0 while Sovetov and Volga drew goalless. Doumbia joins Alexander Kerzhakov with 16 goals at the top of the scoring charts.
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