A bit of a mixed bag this week, with European competitions returning after the winter break, and the league match rescheduled from week 16 between Sporting and Barcelona played on Wednesday evening. As expected Luis Enrique’s side won that, Messi scoring two and Luis Suárez a third in a 1-3 victory which extended their lead at the top. Messi’s first was his 300 th in the league, and he has now scored fifty more than the legendary Zarra, who was La Liga’s leading goalscorer until Messi and Ronaldo came on the scene! Later in the evening Real Madrid clocked up a 0-2 win at Roma in the first leg of their Champions League tie, Ronaldo (with his twelfth in the competition to date!) and Jesé getting the goals in the second half to put them well on track to beating a 30-year jinx against Italian sides. Barcelona and Atlético get their turn next week.

On Thursday the four La Liga teams competing in the Europa League also won their ties to nothing, with Valencia in particular beating Rapid Vienna 6-0. Santi Mina scored two and set up first half goals for Parejo, Negredo and André Gomes, and Rodrigo wrapped things up to give coach Gary Neville a much needed birthday present. Elsewhere defending champions Sevilla won 3-0 against Molde, Llorente netting twice and Gameiro adding the third. And there were single goal victories for Villarreal and Athletic Bilbao, the former beating Napoli 1-0 with a late free kick from Denis Suárez, and the latter winning 0-1 at Olympique Marseille, Aduríz getting the goal of the night there with an impressive first time volley from 30 yards out.

Barcelona further increased their lead at the top of the league table over the weekend, Luis Suárez and Neymar on target in a 1-2 victory over Las Palmas on Saturday evening. That took Suárez on to 41 in all club competitions, only the third Barça player to score 40 or more goals in a season after Ronaldo (the fat one that is), and of course Messi, who has done that loads of times! On Sunday though both Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid could only draw, leaving Barcelona at a distance of nine and eight points respectively from their closest rivals, and on top of that the two Madrid sides have to play each other next weekend. Looks like another league title for the Catalans then!

Ronaldo did score for Madrid at Málaga though, and he now has 246 in the league, just five short of the aforementioned Zarra. But otherwise there were few goals in the week 25 round of games, the only of our Pichichis to increase their tallies being Guidetti, who scored a brace for Celta against Eibar, and Parejo, who helped Valencia beat Granada 1-2, a third win in a week for the Ches. A bit like the buses, you wait twelve weeks for one... (22.02.16)

Pichichi League Cup Europe Total (Penalties)
Luis Suárez (Barcelona) 25 5 11 41 (2)
Ronaldo (Real Madrid) 22 0 12 34 (7)
Messi (Barcelona) 15 6 6 27 (2)
Aduríz (Athletic Bilbao) 13 6 7 26 (3)
Benzema (Real Madrid) 19 0 4 23 (0)
Neymar (Barcelona) 18 3 2 23 (4)
Gameiro (Sevilla) 13 3 3 19 (5)
Griezmann (Atlético) 12 3 4 19 (0)
Borja Bastón (Eibar) 16 1 0 17 (2)
Lucas Pérez (Deportivo) 14 0 0 14 (1)
Bale (Real Madrid) 13 0 0 13 (0)
Iago Aspas (Celta) 9 4 0 13 (0)
Agirretxe (Real Sociedad) 12 0 0 12 (0)
Bakambu (Villarreal) 8 1 3 12 (0)
Williams (Athletic) 7 3 2 12 (0)
Alcácer (Valencia) 9 2 0 11 (2)
Guidetti (Celta) 6 5 0 11 (2)
Negredo (Valencia) 4 5 2 11 (2)
Rubén Castro (Betis) 10 0 0 10 (2)
Sanabria (Sporting) 10 0 0 10 (1)
Charles (Málaga) 9 0 0 9 (0)
Javi Guerra (Rayo) 9 0 0 9 (0)
Jozabed (Rayo) 9 0 0 9 (0)
Parejo (Valencia) 6 1 2 9 (3)
Nolito (Celta) 8 0 0 8 (1)
Sergi Enrich (Eibar) 6 2 0 8 (0)
Caicedo (Espanyol) 6 2 0 8 (0)
Banega (Sevilla) 4 1 3 8 (3)