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Leicester - Leeds is the opening match for this week. And Leicester are going to have a really terrible opponent in their stadium. Leeds have been horrible for four weeks especially as they lost their games by very bad scores. They have zero morale now and they are going to play another difficult match. Leicester have improved their morale by the Burnley victory. And they will want to win against their poor opponent here too. And I'm confident that they will make it. Leeds can't resist here too much.
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There are very good games tonight but the most impressive one to me is Dallas Mavericks - Golden State Warriors. I'm favouring GSW to win this game truthfully but they are still not an absolute favourite too. Because Mavericks also are having a solid season and they have six wins less than GSW now in the standings. And Klay Thompson's condition to play in this game is still doubtful. This means that Curry will need to carry his team again. But if Mavericks have a strong team game, they can still win this one.
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The opening match is going to be Inter - Salernitana on January 4. This is a must-win match for Inter to start fixing the problems going on for four weeks in the league. Salernitana don't have the capacity to resist Inter in this match even though I know that they resisted Milan and drew with them 2-2. Inter will be targeting a certain victory here to gather strength. And right after that, they will take the lead and wait for the Napoli - Milan match to finish. If this match ends in a draw, Inter will take the lead back from Napoli if I'm not mistaken.
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Thanks to Atletico Madrid's decent form for two weeks, they are being favoured by bookmakers in the Betis match next week. The match is an away one for Atletico Madrid and it is in four days. Betis are still one point ahead of them in the standings currently. In their last head-to-head, Atletico Madrid destroyed Betis in Wanda Metropolitano by 3-0. This time, we could have a very competitive match because Betis are in a far better condition compared to those times. Betis would like to win this match after losing to Sevilla. But I think that we will see a draw.
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Most people will be following the Bayern Munich - Leverkusen match most probably. And this is really a game that is worth watching. Even Bayern Munich themselves can make this match very exciting and enjoyable. And the thing I wonder the most is whether Bayern Munich will let their competitor have so many goal opportunities against them. Because whenever Bayern Munich play a match like it is their championship match, they don't give much chance to their competitor. Maybe this one could be one of those times.
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There are really great matches ahead next week which are very important for the rivalry for the second spot in the standings. Marseille are going to have a match against Monaco home and Nice are going to host PSG too. These are very unpredictable matches to me. Marseille beat Monaco by 2-0 before in fact and they can do this again. And PSG couldn't defeat Nice this season. Their league match ended by a 0-0 draw and Nice eliminated them from Coupe de France also. Let's see what happens this time.
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It seems like the Barcelona we have known are back! They continued to destroy another competitor today. They had a home match against Athletic Bilbao and I guess that most people expected a big rivalry in this match. But Barcelona proved those people including me wrong. They really controlled the match from the start to the end and their domination was even more in the second half. Suddenly, the score came to 4-0 from 1-0 and they finished Athletic Bilbao off by a spectacular score. They are still keeping the fourth place now.
The last substitutions really made a direct impact, I barely missed the 1st half, but seeing the 2nd half, I only see Barcelona are on its perfect form. The flow of how their built up the attack was beautiful that many resulted in a goal. Their substitutes who are barely getting into the game with a few minutes left are making use of their playtime perfectly. I believe if Barcelona maintains its form, they will get better standings. I just wish Barcelona showed this incredible performance from the beginning of the season already. But it is still very good to see that they are getting close to the level that we would like to see from a team like Barcelona. Maybe their budget is limited for now and they couldn't make huge transfers in the last two transfer windows. But I'm really contented with Torres and Aubameyang transfers now. They both are doing very good. Aubameyang is already adapting to the team by scoring goals. He also is getting close to his old version which scores many goals in a season. |
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Fenerbahce played an away match against Kasimpasa today and won it by 2-1 also. But this wasn't an easy victory for them either. They got ahead first but Kasimpasa found the equalizing goal in the second half. While people were starting to think that this match would end by 1-1, Szalai saved the team by scoring in the stoppage time. But I can't really say that Fenerbahce made a really big effort in general. They should feel themselves lucky to score two goals on their two shots on target in total. And they have the same points with Basaksehir which are at the third position currently.
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 Everton have made an official inquiry regarding the level of officiating in their matches. Not just the Rodri handball but for other games as well. Would be interesting to see what this results in. Surely, the points wont change but hopefully VAR improves on itself and make lesser errors. I was really shocked when even VAR made a wrong decision about that very clear penalty. It was an obvious handball and Rodri also blushed after this incident. He also knew that it was a certain penalty. I just don't understand how they can make a huge mistake while there is a great system like VAR. They watch an incident many times to make sure about their decision. But it looks like the referees there should improve themselves to make better decisions in the future. |
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Juventus are not a very clear favourite against Villarreal to me and bookmakers think the same as me too as it seems. Because Juventus have an odd around 1.80. This doesn't make any team an absolute favourite to win a match. Villarreal are not a team that should be underestimated. Maybe the match in Spain ended in a 1-1 draw but Juventus should still play very aware against them. And if Juventus score before them, I will be definitely sure about that they will be the team to promote to the next round.
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Napoli surprised me actually by winning the Lazio match 2-1 away. It really didn't seem like this match would end up with a result like this. Napoli scored first and Lazio scored the equalizer in the 88th minute. I thought that this would be the last goal of the match. But Napoli had the last word in the last moments of the stoppage time. It was a very special moment for Napoli and now they are the new leader in the standings by sharing the same points with Milan. This huge title rivalry is making me very excited every week.
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Liverpool have another match absent again and they will play it some time in the future. For now, their main focus is to defeat West Ham in Anfield in a week. They are going to play their match before Manchester City too which is a good thing for Liverpool. Because Liverpool would like to win this match and cause Manchester City to be under pressure against Manchester United in the derby match. But as Manchester United have been not very credible these days, Manchester City still have the upper hand on them too.
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It seems like the Barcelona we have known are back! They continued to destroy another competitor today. They had a home match against Athletic Bilbao and I guess that most people expected a big rivalry in this match. But Barcelona proved those people including me wrong. They really controlled the match from the start to the end and their domination was even more in the second half. Suddenly, the score came to 4-0 from 1-0 and they finished Athletic Bilbao off by a spectacular score. They are still keeping the fourth place now.
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I am looking forward to watching the rematch of the PSG - Real Madrid draw. PSG owned the first match and had everything under control mostly. And their high effort wasn't in vain as they defeated Real Madrid by one goal, 1-0. But it is still not finished for them. Because there will surely be a completely different Real Madrid in their home match. They will play an attacking match and try everything they can to drive PSG players into a corner. And if they become successful about it, they can even eliminate PSG too. And I think that the qualifier won't be determined in 90 minutes.
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Juventus can really bring the fight to top 3 in the league standings not much time later. Top 3 lost so many points nowadays and this is helping Juventus a lot. But this wouldn't go on like this for more weeks I think. If Juventus want to enter this competition to reach the championship and stay there, they must continue to get as many wins as possible. I still can't believe in them to do so that much and I guess so many people think the same as me. Hence, Juventus will need to prove that they really want this title.
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I see no bright future for Borussia Dortmund for the league championship this season. The point difference can seem like six points but this is misleading. Because Dortmund's performance don't even make me hopeful for them to win the title. They are too unstable. For example, their unbelievably enormous loss against Leverkusen was a big disappointment. I know that Bayern Munich do the same time sometimes too but they don't make this kind of mistakes very often. And those are chances for Dortmund to catch up with them actually. But I have no hope in that way from now on.
For me this season is pretty weird to watch. I mean Bayern is by far not performing so dominant as they have been in the last few seasons and they have already experienced quite a lot of losses for their standards so far in this season which is mainly caused by the bad defending in my opinion and normally a bad Bayern season like this would be a huge chance for the "tier 2 clubs" of the league like Dortmund or Leipzig. The thing is those two clubs are also performing pretty badly so far. I mean Dortmund even lost to Glasgow Rangers yesterday with 2-4 in their own stadium which was a complete disappointment. Maybe Leipzig can still reach the second place but they are so far behind at the moment. For example, PSG have been dominating the Ligue 1 for years also but at least a different team became the champions last season and made a difference. And this made the league more interesting then. But this doesn't happen in the Bundesliga because literally the rest of the teams can't reach Bayern Munich's level whatever they do. And this is really frustrating for people like me as I really want to see this boring title series to end. I accept that Bayern Munich are the best in this league now. But we must witness another team being the champions at least in one season too. |
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Two goals in the Arsenal - Wolves match were really interesting to me. Statistically, Arsenal has always had an upper hand ahead of wolves so the comeback wasn't a surprised. Wolves weren't that convincing in the match. Arsenal show great spirit and were rewarded in the last minute of play. It was a well deserved 3 points and increase their hope of getting a champions league spot to play in the big stages again. Arsenal are now just 1 point behind Manchester united while having 2 outstanding matches. Arsenal also has the advantage of not playing in any other tournament. Manchester united will need to up their game or will end up playing in the Europa league next season. Arsenal are fighting for the Champions League spot really seriously now. And Manchester United got just the result that Arsenal would have liked to see. They drew with Watford in Old Trafford by 0-0 even though they tried everything they could to win. I don't know what their problem is now. Actually they really want to win each one of their matches but they still struggle to get comfortable wins. The Leeds victory must have fired them up but it didn't as it seems. They proved again how much unreliable they are this season. And if Arsenal keep up a good consistency, they can leave Manchester United behind and take the fourth position already before playing all of their absent matches. |
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I believe that Benfica did the best they could against a beast like Ajax team. Ajax have had a great tournament so far and they are one of the teams that have impressed everyone surely. And here in this match, I was also waiting for them to tear Benfica apart. But Benfica didn't let them do the same thing that they did to Sporting in the group stage. They kept the match as balanced until the end and drew with them at least. But in Amsterdam, I think Benfica will never stand a chance. Ajax would finish the incomplete job.
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Two goals in the Arsenal - Wolves match were really interesting to me. Wolves' goal was due to a big mistake by Arsenal defense. And Arsenal's winning goal was also unfortunate for Wolves too. I think that it was the goalkeeper's mistake as he couldn't save that. It was not a very hard shot to save I think. Arsenal were lucky too as for winning this one by 2-1 but they were lucky about only the second goal I mean. Because they tried everything they could during the whole match.
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Look at this. Napoli have another opportunity to become the new leader of the league.  Because Milan and Inter both got draws and lost points again two weeks in a row. I just don't have any idea about how this can happen again. The competitors were comfortable ones again actually. But they both were so incapable of beating their competitors. Milan didn't have an impressive performance. But in fact, Inter made a huge effort which was still in vain. However, Napoli have a really tough match to play against Lazio away. It seems like they will lose or get a draw too. |
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