European round-up

La Liga
Valencia are still flying high at the top of the Spanish league and two goals in the first ten minutes from Topal and Soldado were enough to see them win 2-0 at Sporting.

Villarreal are second after they won by the odd goal in five at Malaga. Remarkably, all five goals came in the first thirty-three minutes. Villarreal’s goals came from Rossi and a pair by Santi Cazorla.

Ominously for the rest, however, Barcelona and Real Madrid are sitting third and fourth respectively. Barcelona were impressive as goals from Keita, Xavi and Busquets gave them a 3-1 win at Bilbao whilst Mourinho’s Real Madrid are still struggling to fire on all cylinders and were held to a goalless draw at Levante.

Serie A
I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that Inter are at the top in Italy. After all, that’s where they’ve been for about five years. Having said that, they are a long way from being unbeatable under Rafa Benitez so far. Ranieri’s Roma showed that with a 1-0 win against them courtesy of an injury-time goal from Vucinic.

Lazio are level with Inter on points now after Zarate gave them a 1-0 win at Chievo.

Chievo and Brescia are a point further back. Brescia also lost, going down 2-1 at Bari.

Milan lead the chasing pack a point further back still. They closed the gap on all but Lazio when another Zlatan Ibrahimovic goal saw them through to a 1-0 home win over Genoa.

Bundesliga
Mainz maintained their 100% record in their sixth game to see them three points clear at the top. In what was presumably their toughest test to date they passed with flying colours with Allagui and Szalai giving them a 2-1 win away to Bayern Munich.

Borussia Dortmund and Hannover are their nearest challengers, both having good away wins this weekend.

Bayern Munich languish in ninth place

Eridivisie
Ajax lead the way in Holland by two points from PSV and Groningen.

The leaders dropped two points this week but will be pleased to have twice come from behind to earn a 2-2 draw at FC Twente. El Hamdaoui and Enoh found the net for Ajax.

PSV and Groningen missed out on the chance to close the gap as they cancelled each other out in a 1-1 draw between themselves. Toivonen gave PSV the lead in front of their home fans but Groningen equalised two minutes from the end through Gonzalo.

Ligue 1
St Etienne lead the way in France by one point from Rennes.

The leaders had a fine 1-0 win at Lyon with Payet netting their second half winner.

Rennes kept up the pressure as Dalmat and Montano gave them a 2-1 win at Nice.

Toulouse are a point further back in third after they held to a 1-1 draw at home to Lille.

Portuguese League Sagres
Maximum points from six games sees Porto seven points clear of the rest in Portugal with no obvious serious challengers. Can the title race really be over after just six games? Probably. First half goals from Otamendi and Hulk gave the champions elect an easy 2-0 win over Olhanense.

Academica, Braga and Guimaraes are the three teams seven points back. Academica and Braga both picked up 3-1 wins at the weekend. Academica’s being at the expense of Guimaraes.

SPL
The increasingly pointless Scottish league now sees Rangers and Celtic eight points clear of the rest after they both won their sixth game out of six.

Rangers came back from 2-0 down at Aberdeen to win 3-2 with goals from Jelavic and two from Miller.

Brown and Loovens scored for Celtic in their 2-1 win over Hibernian.

Greek Super League
No shocks in Greece either as Olympiakos lead the way from Panathinaikos.

Olympiakos beat Asteras Tripoli 3-0 whilst Panathinaikos had a slightly harder time seeing off Panionios 2-1.

Turkish Spor Toto Super Lig
Bursaspor head the Turkish league from Besiktas and Galatasaray.

Bursaspor beat Bucaspor 1-0 on Friday. Besiktas saw of Antalyaspor 2-1 on Saturday whilst Galatasaray made it a hat-trick of wins for the top three with a 3-1 win over Istanbul BB on Sunday.