First division sides turned it on in the Spanish cup midweek, the twenty clubs scoring a massive 46 goals between them. Most of the goals came from lesser used players, but Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Higuaín were amongst the scorers, as were Gabilondo, Ulloa and Alfaro. The onslaught devastated the lower ranked clubs, and only Betis and Córdoba made it through to the last sixteen. For once the competition looks like being interesting.

The goals dried up at the weekend though, with only 18 in all in the ten matches. Eight of those came in Saturday's three games, with Messi scoring two more for Barcelona after Villarreal's Nilmar had cancelled out Villa's early strike. Messi has now scored an incredible 50 goals in the 46 matches he has played in since the start of 2010. Diego Forlán finally got his name on the scoresheet after nine weeks without a goal, but he then set up Agüero for a second and scored another himself in Atlético's 3-0 win over Osasuna. And earlier in the evening Llorente netted his eighth of the season in the league, enough to give Athletic the three points against Almería. The following day Higuaín scored a late winner for Real Madrid at Sporting Gijón, and Negredo scored an even later winner for Sevilla after Zaragoza had equalised Luis Fabiano's opener. And that man Trézéguet was also on target as Hércules came from behind to beat Real Sociedad, Drenthe's winning free kick making him only the third player to score for the Alicante based side in the league. Up to then only Trézéguet and Valdez had found the net. (16.11.10)