Only two men sent off this week, Bilbao's Lacruz and Sevilla's Moisés. Lacruz got his marching orders for hacking down Espanyol's Martín Posse in the first half, a decision which hardly anybody protested given the recklessness of the challenge. Roberto Rios was probably lucky not to follow him in the second half as well, referee Undiano Mallenco probably deciding that one was enough. Barça's Gerard can also be thankful that he got away even without a card for a similar tackle which left Betis striker Casas in hospital with a badly broken leg. The other red card went to Moisés, who should probably have kept his calm given that referee Pérez Lasa was dishing out yellows to everyone that moved. Statistics dictated that someone would get a second yellow before too long, and this time it was the Sevilla striker.

The new leader of our chart is Mallorca's Fernando Niño, who picked up his seventh yellow card of the season. Five players reached the five card threshold this week and will miss the next round of games, including Coloccini (Alavés), Ito (Betis), Darío Silva (Málaga), Njegus (Sevilla), Angulo (Valencia), and Peña and Ricchetti (Valladolid). Sceptics might say that Darío Silva got his fifth deliberately as he will be missing next week anyway on international duty. But who are we to judge? (29.10.01)