Honestly, I never expected a this much enjoyable sprint race today. If I'm not wrong, we had two sprint races so far before this one. And none of them was even a little exciting. Actually, Alonso was really good in one of them but anyway.    This one was pretty amusing thanks to Hamilton especially. As you can remember easily, he got a huge penalty as he was going to start from the last position to the sprint race and he got a 5-position grid penalty as an extra. But his determinance in the sprint race was just marvelous to watch. He climbed positions one by one and finished the session at the 5th position. It looks like a really interesting race is waiting for us. The current gap between him and Verstappen is 21 points now.

According to Marca, Barcelona are in pursuit of Manchester United winger Raheem Sterling, their striker Cavani and Chelsea striker Timo Werner. These are all very good targets for Barcelona. I already know of their interest in Sterling but Cavani and Werner targets are new to me. But I also remember that Barcelona have been in a financial trouble for a long time. And I suppose they are still not in a very good financial condition. So, I wonder how they will make all of these transfers in January.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/barcelona-transfer-news-sterling-cavani-25427425

The first match of the new week is going to be Augsburg - Bayern Munich. Augsburg are a weak team now as they won only two times and they are at the 16th place. And Bayern Munich are very comfortable as they are the leader now. They opened the gap with Dortmund for 3 more points and they would like to maintain this gap in the worst case after this match too. Beating Augsburg shouldn't be a too big problem for them.

Juventus' next opponent is going to be Lazio and the match is in Stadio Olimpico. After some weeks, Juventus finally managed to win the last time. But their inconsistency is very alarming now. And Lazio is one of the very tough opponents to defeat in the Serie A. Because they defeated Inter (3-1) and Roma (3-2) both here. And the next potential victim is Juventus if they don't improve their performance. I'd like to see Juventus making us surprised but I'm still favoring Lazio not to lose this match in their own stadium. And Juventus couldn't even beat Lazio away in their last two meetings too.

Yeah, Allegri has too much work to do now. Normally, he is one of the rightest choices for Juventus' management. But he is dealing with big problems now. He will need a lot of time to correct the mistakes in the team and then they will be able to start playing like the old times. Until then, it seems like we will continue to see Juventus performing very inconsistently in the Serie A. But their performance in the Champions League so far has been very impressive.

Of course we can't say anything for certain yet. Maybe Atletico made simple mistakes on the last weeks but they are a very capable team to pull themselves together in a short time. And we can't count them as they are far away from the leader. There is a gap that can be closed easily by Atletico Madrid. The only thing they need to do is to start playing more carefully.

Maybe there are still ten days and an international break before the next matches in the league. But I still want to say something about the opening match of the weekend which is going to be Leicester - Chelsea. I really hope to see a very competitive match here. Leicester are not very good for some weeks. And they have got away from top places. They can't win a match for two weeks. Chelsea are still keeping their leadership but they got an unexpected draw against Burnley home. So, Tuchel would like to win this match and maintain their good performance. I'll be favoring them too but it wouldn't be surprising to see both teams scoring.

I think that these are good choices in general. I don't agree with you on the result of the Greece - Spain match. Because Spain can simply erase them in the field by at least 3 goals. I remember that they drew with Greece the last time with a 1-1 score. But considering the game Spain played in that one, they could have ended Greece by a huge gap. They just missed a lot of goal opportunities.

The Mexico GP was boring unfortunately. I didn't expect a this much boring race honestly. The only delightful part was the start of the race undoubtedly. Because just as I guessed, there was a huge competition between the first three drivers on the grid. And I really appreciated Verstappen's big start and having a clean race. It was also nice to see Perez being on the podium by ending at the third position. After this race, the gap between Verstappen and Hamilton has gone up to 19 points which is really critical considering there are only four races left.

It looks like we all were wrong about our predictions as Leicester got a 1-1 draw home against Spartak Moscow this time. Actually they were the dominating team in this match. But Spartak Moscow scored first. Leicester still managed to score the equalizer in a very short time period. But Vardy missed a penalty in the last fifteen minutes and they couldn't win this time. This was an opportunity for Leicester to move up to a better place in the group as Napoli defeated Legia. But they failed.

It was a great weekend for Bayern Munich as it seems. They played a home match against one of their closest followers in the table which was Freiburg. And Bayern Munich became successful about defeating them with a 2-1 result. And in the other match which was important for Bayern Munich to open the point difference, Dortmund lost to Leipzig 2-1 away. As a result, Bayern Munich are 4 points ahead of Dortmund and 6 points ahead of Freiburg now in the table.

The thing I wonder the most lately is whether Manchester United will decide to change their coach or not in the coming days before their next match. To me, they should already have been in search of a new coach. Conte would be one of the best choices for them I think but Tottenham were faster than them to get him. Because of that, they should be continuing to look for good coaches.

Ajax couldn't get wins for two weeks. They played very dominant against Heracles and G.A. Eagles but both of these matches ended by 0-0. Ajax got 29 shots in their last match against G.A. Eagles but only 5 of them were on target. They are having very big problems on scoring lately and this caused them to not being able to pull away from their opponents. PSV and Feyenoord both won their last two matches and they are right behind Ajax now. It can be a really interesting and competitive season if this goes on like that. And I hope so.

Juventus didn't make me upset this time and won their match against Fiorentina by 1-0. They couldn't win a match for three weeks and this was a very relieving win for them. But it wasn't an easy one too. Even though Juventus took the control in the second half, they barely scored in the last minutes of the match. I wonder whether they will keep up doing a good work in the coming weeks. It is important for them to be able to qualify for a tournament in the end. I don't even mention the title chance as it seems to be near impossible logically.

The most surprising teams of this season have been West Ham and Arsenal definitely. West Ham are doing an extraordinary job with David Moyes. They have moved up to even the 3rd place now after jumping over the big Liverpool obstacle yesterday. It was clear that the game would be competitive for each side. But a win for West Ham? That was unexpected for me. Bookmakers also didn't give much chance for West Ham. But here they are!

When it comes to Arsenal, they got another win this time vs Watford home. Maybe it ended by 1-0 but a win is always a win. Arsenal have succeeded in climbing to the 5th place now. And they are only two points away from Liverpool which seems like a dream for me. Who would have thought that Arsenal would make a huge comeback in the standings and catch up with the top places? I didn't think of it. 

Maybe nothing is certain yet but I must admit that Atletico Madrid's performance has decreased on the weeks we've left behind. They have a bigger problem on their defense especially. In their last game against Valencia, they didn't have problem on scoring goals at all (3 goals). But they couldn't hamper conceding 3 goals. If they don't solve this defensive problem, it can cost them the title chance in the coming weeks as the point gap with the top team could open a lot.

As far as I can see, Besiktas are one of the worst teams this season in the CL. In four matches played, they scored only 2 goals and conceded 12 goals. They are the second worst team in terms of goal average. Malmo are the worst one as they scored none and conceded 12 goals. It is really worrying to see Besiktas performing like Malmo despite having a really capable squad.

It is claimed that Manchester City would think of making an offer for the current Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers after Pep Guardiola leaves the team. As we know, Guardiola said something about leaving City in the near future some time ago. And Leicester are thinking of sacking Brendan Rodgers after having poor results. I'm not sure about whether he is the right manager to fill Guardiola's place at City. I would look for more successful managers if I were Manchester City.

We have another Leicester - Spartak Moscow match ahead and this time it is in King Power Stadium. Leicester won by 4-3 against them in their last match. There is nothing holding them back from getting another win here. Actually, all of the teams in their group have a big chance to be able to promote to the next round. So I'm sure that Spartak Moscow will do their best but I expect Leicester to win this.

After climbing to even the 6th place, I started following Arsenal's matches closely in the EPL. And they have an interesting match ahead vs Watford home. Watford is a really interesting opponent that they can do very unexpected things anytime. For example, they destroyed Everton by 5-2 away two weeks ago. But they have a really terrible form in general. Arsenal have been having one of their best times lately and they must win to keep this up. And I believe they will do so here.