Red-hot La Liga

Atlético takes over at the top of La Liga, Barcelona crashes at home, Real Madrid blows the chance to overtake their Catalan rival, as Ronaldo is sent off. Arsenal finishes the evening sitting on top of the Premier League, isolated and visits Liverpool FC in the next match.

La Liga (After 22 matches)
Change at the top of La Liga, with Club Atlético de Madrid leap-frogging over Barcelona to claim top place with 57 points, three ahead of Barça and Real Madrid. Barcelona went down 2-3 at home to Valencia, with Messi showing some touches of magic and one penalty for the home side; Atlético went top with a 4-0 trouncing of Real Sociedad and Real Madrid came away from Athletic Bilbao with a 1-1 draw.

Premiership (After 24 matches)
Arsenal (55) ends the evening on top of the Premier League, taking advantage of the brilliant win by Chelsea at Manchester City's stadium, the Etihad. City is second, Chelsea third both on 53 points. The Premiership is now a three-horse race. Oxlade-Chamberlain gave the Gunners two goals against Crystal Palace (2-0), while Ivanovic scored Chelsea's winner (1-0) at Manchester City's Etihad Stadium.

Bundesliga (After 19 matches)
Bayern Munich is the runaway leader on 53 points, thirteen clear of Bayer 04 Leverkusen (40), with Dortmund on 36. Bayern slammed 5 past Eintracht Frankfurt without reply, Leverkusen beat Stuttgart 2-1 and Dortmund won 2-1 at Braunschweig.

Serie A (After 22 matches)
Juventus leads on 59 points, AS Roma is second with 50 and a game in hand and Napoli is slipping further and further back, third with 44 points. Juve beat Inter 3-1, Napoli went down 3-0 in Bergamo to Atalanta and the match between Roma and Parma was abandoned.

Ligue 1 (After 23 matches)
PSg gaind further ground against its main rivals, now leading with 54 points, 5 clear of second-placed AS Monaco FC. Lille is third with 41. Ibrahimovic and Alex saw off Bordeaux in Paris, Monaco came away from Lorient with a 2-2 draw; Lille went down 1-0 at Nice.

Primeira Liga (After 17 matches)
Benfica tops the Portuguese Primeira Liga with 40 points, Sporting CP has 38 and FC Porto 36. None of the top three clubs won this weekend. Benfica drew 1-1 at Gil Vicente's stadium in barcelos; Sporting CP was held 0-0 at home in Lisbon by Académica (Coimbra) and FC Porto came away from Madeira with a 1-0 defeat to Marítimo.

Turkish League (After 19 matches)
Fenerbahçe leads the Turkish league but with a gap reduced to seven points over Galatasaray AS. Fenerbahçe has 44 points, Galatasaray 37.

In Azerbaijan, the Championship resumed with a change at the top after 19 games. Qäbälä has 38 points, Neftci has 37 and Qarabag 36

Russian Premier League (After 19 matches)
The Russian Premier is hot, hot, hot. Zenit recovered with a 2-1 win over Ural and is equal first (40 points) with Lokomotiv (drawless home game with Rubin). Spartak Moskva is third with 39 points (1-0 winner at Rostov).  Dinamo Moskva (35) beat Amkar 2-0 in Moscow, while CSKA (34) lost 1-0 at Krasnodar. The championship resumes in March.

In Armenia FC Ararat leads, 8 points clear, with 30 points from 14 games. The Championship resumes in March; in Belarus after 32 games, BATE Borisov is the Champion. In Kazakhstan, FC Aktobe is champion.

In Ukraine after 18 games, the top spot belongs to Shakhtar Donetsk (41 points), five points ahead of Dynamo Kyiv. Metalist Kharkiv (36) and Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk (35) follow in third and fourth place, both with a game in hand. The championship resumes in March.

Photo: Diego Simeone, Atlético Madrid manager
                
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru