No competition so far as to whom will be our top villain this year, with Wome being sent off for the second time this season only a half hour in to his first game after returning from a one match ban. The Camerooni international lost his nerves and flattened Juanfran (who knew when and how to fall convincingly) after the visiting full back protested about Espanyol not putting the ball out of play with a Celta player injured. Espanyol ended the match with nine men after Juanfran (again) was brought down by the unfortunate keeper Lemmens, who handed his shirt over to defender Torricelli to defend the resulting penalty.

There were two other red cards this weekend, one for Barcelona right back Gabri, presumably for insulting the referee at the end of the game in Mallorca, and one for Osasuna manager Javier Aguirre, who was booked twice in succession for continuing to protest about a possible previous foul leading up to Real Sociedad's goal. Aguirre has the dubious honour of being only the second manager to appear in our villains' chart following on from Fernando Vázquez last season.

We also had the first players reaching the five yellow card suspension threshold this weekend, Daniel Alves of Sevilla and Albelda of Valencia. Having picked up four already, Rafa Benítez wisely kept the Spanish international on the bench last week against Espanyol so that he could be available for the more important match at Deportivo. A good decision as it turned out, although they still lost.

As expected, the disciplinary committee did cancel one of Ponzio's yellow cards (see last week's report) and he was available to play. Murcia's Sánchez Broto was given a one match ban though after last week's game against Osasuna, presumably for something he said from the bench, and he had to sit out the match against Atlético Madrid together with Carreras and Jensen, who were sent off in Pamplona. (27.10.03)