Sevilla and Atletico's seasons have been flipped... Sevilla started off playing as contenders and then fell apart because of lack of rotation, and Atletico is now playing like contenders but it took them too long to find their form. Simeone's experiments with the 4-4-2 hurt them quite a bit earlier on.
I watched the Barca-Malaga game, and what I literally saw was Messi trying his best, but his team mates were more focused on frustrating Malaga than winning (Umtiti, Suarez, Neymar). Busquets and Iniesta were repeatedly shut down physically, which was a good approach. It was a little risky, but their manager clearly told them to watch out for follow-throughs because of the threat of a yellow and/or dives. And Malaga's counter-attack was very well-drilled... I was pleasantly surprised to see a very good game of football.
As for us.... disappointed once again in Navas' goalkeeping. What the hell was that sprint towards Griezmann? Nacho was chasing him down and forcing him into the corner. Let him shoot and save the shot! Don't f*cking sprint to him. Literally gave him the open space to shoot and score. This guy makes me cringe every time we play now... so many goals conceded because of him.
At times like these I wish Casillas had the longevity of Buffon. We never had a goalkeeping issue with the Saint,
The current situation of La Liga is rather... interesting in my opinion. Real have been outstanding this season, losing only 2 game despite not getting a huge number of reinforcement last year (then again, when you got that sort of squad, its hard to get an upgrade). Barca are still a bit inconsistent as seen by today lose to Malaga, despite them not offloading many player and still getting quite a few reinforcement this summer. My best guest it that their weakness would be that their defense and midfield is getting older and they have yet to find the correct player to replace their veteran... Atletico Madrid is good now but their first results of the season did hurt their whole results for the season while Sevilla as quite simply choked recently and are now unlikely to be able to end anywhere higher than fourth or third place. A shame.
Anyway, there is still a long way to go and Madrid has to play some tough game before the end, yet I'm currently thinking they have what they need to achieve sucess in their league, especially if Barca keep on failling to close the gap between the two. What are your thought on the matter? Is Real Madrid victory is in the bag? Or will Barca find a way back?