Welcome to the La Liga briefing where quite a lot has happened this weekend; at the top of the table Real Madrid have (technically) overtaken Barcelona, with the Blaugrana to play their match away at Girona on Monday evening. On top of that Rayo Vallecano stunned Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid.
For the first time this season Real Madrid looked to be in total control in an imposing 4-1 victory against Real Sociedad at the Bernabéu. Trent Alexander-Arnold put in a performance resembling his time back on Merseyside before joining the Spanish giants. An early in swinging cross- poked past Alex Remiro by young Madrid forward Gonzalo Garcia opened the score and reminded fans of exactly what Alexander-Arnold can offer Los Blancos. Sociedad were able to peg Madrid back to 1-1 when Dean Huijssen took out Yangel Herrera in his own box. The penalty was converted by Mikel Oyarzabal but wasn’t enough to win the Basque side any points. Vinicius Jr was the main character in this game. The Brazilian won two penalties, converting them both. This was Real Sociedad’s first defeat in all competitions since December 12th last year and head coach Pellegrino Matarazzo first defeat since joining on December 20th.
Then Rayo Vallecano, wrestled their way out of the relegation zone by shooting down Atletico Madrid in a city derby that was played just outside of Madrid at the Estadio Ontime Butarque. Problems with the pitch at Rayo’s home Estadio de Vallecas had been mounting for weeks with the club deciding to completely replace the pitch. But even away from home, outside of the city bounds they managed to score thrice against their local rivals. El Cholo opted for a rotated side with eight changes from the starting XI who played in that 4-0 thrashing of Barcelona in the Copa del Rey on Thursday. These 3 points can prove to be crucial at the end of the campaign as the other participants of this relegation dogfight (Mallorca 18th, Levante 19th and Real Oviedo 20th) were all unable to win a single point this weekend.
Valencia were able to put some distance between them and the relegation zone by scoring twice against their city rivals Levante. Largie Ramazani scored his second La Liga goal and it was a stunning volley from the edge of the area. The Belgian winger is on loan at Valencia from Leeds until the end of the season. Then with just 6 minutes of regular time to play Umar Sadiq wrestled Matais Moreno of the ball to go one-on-one with Levante’s Matthew Ryan. Sadiq pulled the trigger early smashing the ball past the Australian and doubling the lead for Valencia. Things went from bad to worse for Levante as Kevin Arriaga received consecutive yellow cards in stoppage time meaning his team went down to ten men.
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