First acquaintances of Arteta and Ancelotti
The 18th round of the championship of England opened with a match between two teams in which the latest coaching changes took place. Arsenal was only two days earlier led by its former player and recent assistant Josep Guardiola Mikel Arteta. He accompanied his team to visit Everton, who had just announced the appointment of Carlo Ancelotti just an hour before the game. Both specialists watched the match from the stands, presenting the opportunity for the predecessors to finish their work.
It is unlikely that Arteta and Ancelotti could be pleased with what they saw, as well as the fans gathered at the stadium. The match ended in a goalless draw, and there were only two shots on target, and both of the guests made it. Zero draw aggravated the standings of both teams - Everton remained close to the relegation zone, while Arsenal did not come close to the top five.
In the main match of Saturday, the two closest pursuers of Liverpool came together, who on this day, instead of meeting with West Ham, celebrated a victory in the club world championship. “Leicester” climbed to the second place for himself by the 18th round, and Manchester City was eager to reduce the gap to at least one point.
Wards of Brendan Rogers in the middle of the first half opened the score thanks to a proprietary counterattack Jamie Vardi, who began a new scoring series instead of the interrupted eight-match. “City” in this match did not have enough performers in the attack, and “Leicester” immediately reminded that it has the strongest defense in the Premier League, but good luck smiled on the home team that day. After the rebound, Riyad Marez scored for the former team, and Ilkay Gundogan from the penalty spot took the wards of Guardiola ahead. When the “Leicester” ran to recoup, it received a goal in their own goal by Gabriel Jesus. Manchester City increased the number of their goals in the 2010s to 841, which was the best result in the championships of England since the 1950s, when Wolverhampton scored over 900 times in one decade.
Crazy records of Messi and Barcelona
“Barcelona” made another attempt to break away from “Real” in the standings of the championship of Spain. The Catalans confidently defeated the Alaves in their field, rapidly approaching the relegation zone.
The hero of the match was Luis Suarez. First, his three programs helped to create the necessary groundwork - the Uruguayan helped Antoine Griezmann, and Arturo Vidal, and Lionel Messi. For the Argentinean, this goal was special. With him, for the ninth time in the last ten years, he reached 50 goals in a calendar year. Only in 2013, Messi did not achieve this. It was in this season of Examples that this goal for the striker became 13th, and he allowed to lead the scorer race, beating Karim Benzema.
Leo #Messi has scored at least 5️⃣0️⃣ goals (club & country) in 9 of the last 10 calendar years!
2010 6️⃣0️⃣
2011 5️⃣9️⃣
2012 9️⃣1️⃣ 🤯
2013 4️⃣5️⃣
2014 5️⃣8️⃣
2015 5️⃣2️⃣
2016 5️⃣9️⃣
2017 5️⃣4️⃣
2018 5️⃣1️⃣
2019 5️⃣0️⃣
🐐 pic.twitter.com/2bMEslMEro
Suarez finally scored from the penalty spot himself, bringing the score in the match to 4: 1. This result allowed Barcelona for the seventh time to achieve a unique achievement - to end the year without defeat at its Camp Nou stadium. The last time the Catalan club achieved this under Guardiol in 2011.
Sevilla continues to take root in third place. Examples. Wards of Julen Lopotegi beat Mallorca 2-0 at the exit. Specially for this match, the leader of the Seville attacks Lucas Ocampos departed for a three-game suspension, but the team was able to cope without it. At the 20th minute, Diego Carlos closed the canopy of Ever Banega from the corner flag, and at the 61st the Argentinean himself realized the penalty awarded after using VAR. Prior to Sunday's match between Real Madrid and Athletics, Sevilla will be only two points behind Madrid.
Effective and generous Lukaku
The main events of the 17th round of the Italian championship will unfold on Sunday, but one match with the leader of the standings has already taken place. “Inter” took on his field a hopeless “Genoa”, for the whole season won only two victories. The Milanese did not spare the outsider, who occupies the last but one place in the standings, and caught up with Juventus in terms of points.
Especially unstoppable was Romelu Lukaku. The Belgian striker scored a double and assisted Roberto Galliardini. He has already scored 12 goals in Serie A after moving to Inter - as much as for Manchester United last season.
One of the goals in the gate of “Genoa” chalked up Sebastiano Esposito. The 17-year-old striker quite unexpectedly got a place in the starting lineup, and when the judge awarded a penalty in favor of the Milanese, Lukaku allowed him to break from the “point”. The young man distinguished himself for the first time in his team and celebrated this momentous event with his mother.
💭 | Sebastiano had a dream ...
Mum helped it come true 💖
These moments ☺ # InterGenoa # ForzaInter ⚫🔵 pic.twitter.com/yeVYYyNqo0
There was another hero in this match. Goalkeeper Samir Handanovich did not allow the Genoese to realize at least one of his rare attacks and spent the hundredth match in the Italian championship to zero. Over the past seven years, no one else has been able to achieve this.
Sole Leadership Leipzig
In Germany, the first half of the season is coming to an end. The 17th round, followed by a break of almost a month, opened with a match between Hoffenheim and Dortmund Borussia. “Hoffenheim” won only once in his history of playing in the Bundesliga in the last match of the outgoing year, and this game could also end in defeat for the home team. Already in the 17th minute, Mario Götze completed a beautiful draw with a discount from Ashraf Hakimi. But at the end of the match, everything was changed by Sarkis Adamyan, who had already managed to bring the team victory over Bayern this season. His goal and the transfer to Andrei Kramarich allowed Hoffenheim to win with a score of 2: 1 and for one day to get into the European competition zone, which in Germany is limited to sixth place.
On Saturday, Bayern hosted Wolfsburg, which is unlucky in Munich - in the entire history the team managed to score just two points at a formidable opponent. But for the next trip, “Wolfsburg” approached with the best result in conceded goals among all the Bundesliga teams and really resisted for a long time for “Bavaria”. But in the last five minutes, the guests surrendered - Joshua Zirksee and Serge Gnabry brought the Munich team a 2-0 victory.
Bayern still lose four points to the leading Leipzig, who defeated Augsburg. Last season, these two teams finished both matches with zero draws, but this time Florian Niederlechner took the Bavarian ahead in the sixth minute. Leipzig responded with three goals. None of them, however, were designed by Timo Werner, because of which his seven-match productive series was interrupted. But he made the transfer to Yussuf Poulsen, so by hockey standards the striker series continues.
Schalke missed the opportunity to get around the Dortmund and break into the Champions League zone. Gelsinkirchen took Freiburg, having suffered two defeats before. The guests were able to use two penalties, which for Schalke have become an excessively big problem. Only thanks to the goal of 19-year-old Ahmed Kutuju, ten minutes before the end, the hosts achieved a draw.
After all these matches, the Mönchengladbach Borussia had a great chance to catch up with Leipzig again and lead the league table with it. But the team was not easy to score on a visit to the Berlin “Hertha”. Borussia outplayed the opponent the whole match, but the meeting ended in a goalless draw, to which the Moscow club with zero shots on target gleefully agreed. The Gladbach team are two points behind the first place and beat Bavaria as much.
"Monaco" is more dangerous than PSG
“Monaco” took an impressive revenge from “Lille” for the relegation from the French Cup, which occurred this week. Wards Leonard Jardim answered the opponent with even more crushing defeat with a score of 5: 1. The score in this match was opened by the Lille players, but after a quarter of an hour Zhelson Martins equalized, and Balde Keita brought the Monegasques forward. Wissam Ben-Yedder has doubled his lead, and Camil Glick in the compensated time put an end to the match. Alexander Golovin spent all 90 minutes on the field, but he did not mark anything except the yellow card.
This victory allowed Monaco to extend the unbeaten run in the French Championship to four matches - this season it is the longest run of the team. In the standings, the club from the dwarf princedom has already risen to seventh place, and in terms of lost points it could have caught up with the same Lille, which occupies fourth position.
PSG strengthens leadership so that other clubs can only envy the successes of Parisians. Toward the close of the first round of League 1, they won their sixth victory in a row, defeating Amiens. Neymar scored a goal and an efficient pass, scoring eight points for these actions in the last four matches. Kilin Mbappe scored twice, having chalked up six goals for the same period. Completed the defeat with a score of 4: 1 Mauro Icardi. PSG with one unplayed match ahead of the closest pursuer, “Marseille” by seven points and so far does not intend to slow down in pursuit of the next championship.