Premier League

Despite selling half their team to Liverpool over the summer, somehow Southampton were sitting in second place coming into this weekend. Part of that due to the Dutch ingenuity of Ronald Koeman and his ability to shuffle in new players; part of it due to an easy start on the schedule. That changed in a hurry when Manchester City came to town.

Southampton actually played pretty well, though aside from one Graziano Pelle chance on 20 minutes, they didn’t test Major Joe Hart too often. Morgan Schneiderlin was forced off at half time with injury, and in the second half City showed the class that’s been missing from them for the last month or so. Yaya Toure took full advantage of the Saints playing deep and Sergio Aguero’s gravitational pull to drive in the opening goal. Eliaquim Mangala was sent off for a second yellow, which gave Southampton the confidence to press forward but they couldn’t break down the Citizens and instead gave up two more goals on the break. Frank Lampard with a trademark-er from the edge of the box before Sergio Aguero put one on a tee for Gael Clichy’s first goal for City in his 120th match. 3-0 was the final score, City back on track – they overtake Southampton for second.

They also gain a couple of points on Chelsea (reducing the gap to 6) after the Blues were held 0-0 by Sunderland. It was one of their worst games of the season, and they’ll be without Diego Costa against Spurs midweek after his frustration boiled over into his fifth booking of the season.

Arsenal seem to be back on track, first the dominating win over Dortmund to put the Gunners into the knockout stages of the Champions League for the fifteenth year in a row, then a pretty impressive outing against a stubborn West Brom team. Danny Welbeck scored the only goal in a 1-0 win, though the Gunners dominated for most and deserved the points.

Manchester United are also on a roll, winning their third game in a row for the first time this season. Hull City were awful – they’re in freefall mode right now – but that doesn’t take away from United’s dominance. Chris Smalling had some help from goal-line tech in getting the first goal, before Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie stunners made it 3-0.

Also, Liverpool won! Stevie G was dropped to the bench on the 16th anniversary of his debut (though he’s at least been offered a new contract), while Kolo Toure and Glen Johnson also got starts. And after one of the most boring first halves of the season, things opened up in the second some and it was Glen Johnson who scored the late winner, bravely heading in after Rickie Lambert’s effort came back off the bar. The Reds’ first win in six in all comps.

Newcastle’s EPL winning streak is over at 5 after West Ham held on to a 1-0 win. Aaron Cresswell’s goal had a bit of luck about it given how it fell to him but the Hammers, playing without Winston Reid and Alex Song, were able to hold on after Moussa Sissoko was sent off (he picked up two yellows in about 45 seconds). Danny Ings scored again for Burnley as they were able to salvage a 1-1 draw with Aston Villa. The other two promoted sides battled out a high scorer. Leicester City finally broke their goal drought (504 minutes!) but fell 3-2 to QPR. Charlie Austin now tied for fourth on the top scorers list with 7.

Swansea and Crystal Palace battled away to a 1-1 draw, which the Swans will see as two points dropped, while Tottenham managed to rally from a stunning Kevin Mirallas goal to beat Everton 2-1. Christian Eriksen equalised before Roberto Soldado scored what would prove the winner just before half time. Everton have only won once in five games following Europa League clashes, though that’s not an excuse against Spurs, whose record following European matches is 3 wins and 4 losses (they had to play 2 qualifiers as well, hence the extra games).

La Liga

Real Madrid, who can catch ‘em? It’s not like the other big dogs aren’t playing well, but Real just won a club record 16th consecutive game. They’d won 15 straight in 1961, and again under Jose Mourinho in 2011. But Carlo Ancelotti’s side are unparalleled. The record-breaker was a 2-1 win at Malaga, in which Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale scored and Isco was sent off before Roque Santa Cruz (remember him?) pulled a consolation goal back in injury time. Ronaldo set up both goals.

The lead at the top still hasn’t changed (2 ahead of Barca, 4 ahead of Atletico) after the top three all won. Barcelona struggled past a tough Valencia side but managed to win it very late. Both sides had chances though it took until the 94th minute to break the deadlock. With Barca pressing hard for a winner, Messi lobbed one across, Neymar headed at the keeper but Sergio Busquets slammed the rebound into the net – his first goal in 14 months. Unfortunately the game was semi-marred when Lionel Messi was hit by a bottle thrown from the crowd in his celebrations. Messi tried to complain to the ref, showing the ref bottle even… and got booked for time-wasting.

And Atletico Madrid won too, continuing their sneaky good form. Typically they scored just before and after half time in a 2-0 win. A clean sheet and both goals from set pieces. Nobody can accuse Diego Simeone’s lads of not having a plan.

Sevilla won to move into fourth (with Valencia and Malaga losing to the Clasico pair), while Villareal had a handy win to close the gap on the European places and David Moyes had his first win (in his second game) with Real Soceidad, thanks to former Arsenal fella Carlos Vella.

Bundesliga

There are two things to write about every week with the German stuff. Two angles to take. Either A) Bayern Munich’s latest dominating win or B) Dortmund’s latest low. Well, Bayern only won 1-0 this week, away to Hertha Berlin, though they had 15 shots to 4 and almost 76% of possession. Arjen Robben scored the only goal, he’s just been rewarded for a great season with a spot in the final trio of Ballon D’Or voting (alongside Ronaldo/Messi, of course). Here’s Manny being Manny.

But Dortmund. Where will it end? No Marco Reus now for an extended period of time after his ugly injury last week, they fell 2-0 to Eintracht Frankfurt. Jurgen Klopp says he’ll never quit this team, but last years’ runners up are now dead last on the table, following Stuttgart’s win over Freiburg. It’s a complete mess, 8 losses in 13 games.

Elsewhere Wolfsburg bounced back with a 1-0 win over Borussia M.Gladbach to stay in second. Third placed Bayer Leverkusen smashed Cologne 5-1, while Augsburg are now all the way up to fourth. Schalke had a big win too.

Ligue 1

Zlatan, why so cool? Mr Ibrahimovic is one of the world's premier strikers but his goal in PSG's 1-0 win over Nice was his first Ligue 1 goal since August, cray cray huh? That win for PSG marked was their 9th straight as they continue to claw their way back in to the mix for the top spot. They're still behind Marseille, albeit by a point as Marseille took care of Nantes 2-0.

The other two top 4 sides, Bordeaux and Lyon had a slightly more mixed bag. Bordeaux just got home against Lille 1-0 with Cheikh Diabate netting his 6th goal of the season while Lyon, well they slipped up 3-0 against Saint-Ettiene. That was Lyon's first defeat since August, there's something about August here ... that's 11 games without defeat only to put in a sub-par performance this weekend. That means that Lyon slip to equal points with Bordeaux on 27, while PSG sit on 33 and Marseille on 34.

Serie A

It was a winning weekend for both Juventus and Roma at the top of the Serie A ladder, with Juve scraping through against Torino and Roma too good for Inter Milan 4-2. Sidenote - guess who has 6 goals this season? Behind the likes of Carlos Tevez (9), Callejon (8) and Higuain (7) sits Gervinho!

Torino aren't too flash but they pushed Juve all they way, only for the wonderful Andrea Pirlo to hit the winner. A beautiful strike from a beautiful man...

Inter's loss at the hands of Roma was Roberto Mancini's first loss in charge of Inter and he's got a tough ask to get Inter back near the top. The same can be said for AC Milan as they sit mid-table but were able to take care of Udinese 2-0. Jeremey Menez, the man well known for scoring slightly awesome goals was back at it like a crack addict...