Atletico keeps pace with Barcelona, Real unable to do the same

Diego Costa has been in stunning form this season

After two consecutive defeats, Barcelona have managed to put themselves back on track with a thumping 6-1 victory over Celtic in the Champions League and an edgy 2-1 win over Villarreal in La Liga. As Lionel Messi moves closer and closer to full fitness, it is important for Barcelona not to lose any more points in the league, with Atletico snapping close at their heels.

While the win over Celtic was certainly morale-boosting, it came against a team which was playing for pride more than anything else. That game will be remembered for the hattrick by Neymar. To start the Champions League goalscoring record with a hattrick is a special achievement indeed. And to follow up that performance with 2 goals in the next match proves that Neymar is gearing it up a notch in the absence of Messi.

Against Villarreal, Tata Martino opted to field Alex Song and Sergio Busquets, both defensive midfielders by trade. This was probably to ensure that Barca wouldn’t be outmuscled as they were in their previous defeats. Well, the plan worked and it didn’t.

On the one hand, Villarreal’s midfielders sans Cani and Bruno, their key players, were kept at bay. Only Giovanni dos Santos, the former Barca player looked lively throughout the first half. On the other hand, Barca were not able to get fully going in the absence of a deep-lying playmaker to dictate the tempo.

Even with the double pivot, Barca’s attack was good enough to create a handful of chances throughout the match and were Martin Montoya’s final ball good enough on a number of occasions, as he himself stated after the match, Barca wouldn’t have had to work as hard as they did.

On the other side of the pitch, Jordi Alba’s return to the team couldn’t have come sooner as he showed everyone his worth by continually providing a good attacking threat beside Neymar on the left. A word of appreciation must go towards Pinto, who has ably deputized for Valdes in his absence.

However, for a pragmatic coach, Martino’s insistence on using Fabregas as a false nine is puzzling. The false nine position is one of the more difficult ones in football for which one needs to drop deeper to pick the ball up, operate in between the defensive lines, create doubts in the defenders’ minds whether to go with him or not and basically create mayhem, which Messi does on a regular basis. Now, we all know neither Fabregas nor anyone else in this world can do that as well as Messi, so there is no point in comparing Cesc to him.

But when Fabregas drops deeper, he just becomes another ball-playing midfielder who doesn’t have that deadly striking ability to draw defenders deeper, nor does he have the pace and dribbling skills to take them on. So why not give a chance to Neymar or Alexis to perform that role for a match or two?

Meanwhile, Atletico and Diego Costa continued their good run with yet another win, this time against Valencia. The big clash against Barcelona is getting closer and if by that time, they are still level on points, then probably for the first time in many years, a genuine heavy-weight clash other than El Clasico may take place in Spain.

Diego Costa is now the joint top-scorer of La Liga alongside Ronaldo with 17 goals and he has been the talisman of this Atletico side from the beginning of the season. And it is not that Atletico are just a well-drilled defensive side who score on the counter-attack. They have scored 43 goals in the league, with only Real and Barca above them and not too far either, with 46 and 44 respectively.

Real Madrid, on the other hand, keeping aside all their recent goal-scoring form, have given due respect to their five-game long tradition of not winning away at Osasuna. It hasn’t been a good week for Ancelotti as his team had also drawn against Olimpic Xativa in the Copa del Rey, who play their football in the third division.

The draw against Osasuna gives Barcelona and Atletico a five-point lead and any more slip-ups means Ancelotti will start feeling the pressure. Normally, a manager is given one season as buffer time to transform a direction-less team into an efficient unit and the second season is the season of assessment, but Real Madrid is not a normal club. It will be interesting to see how much leeway Ancelotti will be given.

Sergio Ramos added another red feather to his cap in the game against Osasuna. That’s his 18th sending-off in eight-and-a-half seasons at the Bernabeu, which makes it at least two per season. That is some consistency. Just an observation.

One positive that Real can take from this draw is that even with 10 men for a good duration of the game, they were able to claw their way back from a two-goal deficit and clinch a point. Their next game is the second leg of the Copa del Rey fixture against Xativa, thanks to the ridiculous two-leg format. After that comes the away fixture against Valencia at the Mestalla, which will serve as a good barometer for their progress at the halfway mark of the season.

With the transfer window in sight now, most teams would be planning to bring in a few players to strengthen their squads. It will be interesting to see if Atletico invest and bring in a few players, as that would mean that they earnestly believe in their title-winning chances. Real already have a well-rounded squad and for Barca, well, they get Messi back. I am sure they will be more than content with that.