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Football, the beautiful game, is a worldwide phenomenon in large part because of the drama it constantly produces, and these past few weeks have been no different. We’ve seen local derbies, upsets and major shifts in league tables across Europe.
In England, Chelsea still lead the Premier League standings though arguably the biggest story is how well West Ham have been performing and currently sit third, with the same amount of points as Manchester City.
Bayern Munich, having won all but two of their games played in the Bundesliga so far, sit comfortably at the summit of the German top flight. Over in Spain, Barcelona’s woes see them sit at seventh while Real Sociedad and Real Madrid battle it out for the top spot in La Liga.
In terms of the latest football results worth noting, the Premier League has been the source of most. Most recently, West Ham toppled Liverpool to leapfrog them into third place and continue talk of a potential Champions League qualification, or even a title run.
It was no easy victory for the Hammers at the London Stadium, but it was Kurt Zouma’s second-half goal that secured their first league victory over Liverpool since 2016, and their fourth win in a row in the Premier League.
Of course, it’s been the tumultuous form of M. United that’s caused some of the biggest results in football recently. In the recent Manchester derby against City, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side turned in a woeful first-half performance, conceding twice, and weren’t able to claw anything back.
It was an own goal from Eric Bailly and a comfortable finish from Bernardo Silva on the stroke of halftime that secured victory for City, who are now only three points behind Chelsea, having lost just one of their last six league games.
A few weeks prior, United suffered one of the most damaging defeats in the recent history of the club when local rivals Liverpool smashed them 5-0 at Old Trafford. Paul Pogba was sent off just 15 minutes after coming on while Mohamed Salah scored a sensational hat-trick, with goals from Naby Keita and Diogo Jota also.
Those two crushing losses have mounted serious pressure on the United manager, who finds himself squarely in the firing line of fans and potentially the club owners. They’ve also caused the Red Devils to slip further from the top four, and they now sit at sixth.
However, in between those two losses was a convincing 3-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur, who are also struggling to find a decent run of form as of late. Cristiano Ronaldo, Edinson Cavani and Marcus Rashford all found the net to provide United with their only win in their last six league games.
Chelsea have arguably been the most consistent of England’s big four, and proved how devastating they can be when they demolished Norwich City 7-0 a few weeks ago. Despite the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner being sidelined through injury, the Blues handed out a stunning attacking display, with Mason Mount stealing the show via a hat-trick.
The Serie A in Italy is gradually becoming a two-horse race, with Napoli and AC Milan tied at the top on 32 points, with the former just ahead on goal difference. Inter Milan had the chance to make up some ground on their local rivals, but had to settle for a 1-1 draw earlier this month.
A converted penalty from Hakan Calhanoglu gave Inter the lead, only for a Stefan de Vrij own goal to even the score a few minutes later, and neither side could then break the deadlock.
La Liga, however, is much closer at the top. Though Real Sociedad hold the top spot, there’s only one point separating the top three teams. However, it’s the fall of European giants Barcelona that has stolen most of the headlines.
Their troubles were best exemplified during a recent draw with Celta Vigo, a side the Catalans should have dealt with fairly comfortably. Indeed, that looked to be the case at half-time, with Barcelona leading 3-0.
However, they shipped two goals from the hosts in the second half, before Celta Vigo found the equaliser in the 96th minute of the game. It was a jaw-dropping turnaround and, though it only earned them a point, was a huge result for Celta Vigo.
The top flight leagues across Europe have been producing some incredible games and results recently and, for the most part, it’s becoming increasingly hard to predict how things will end up. That, of course, is one of the joys of watching football.
