It really looks like Lyon are a serious candidate to relegate from the Ligue 1 this season.    They lost to even Clermont home which had less points than them in the standings. Lyon have 0 wins in 9 games so far. If this goes on like this until the end of the first half of the season then I will be more confident about their being relegated.

For example Lens are also struggling a lot but they are at least better than Lyon. They are focused on the Champions League more. So if they shift their focus onto the league more then I believe they will make a good improvement which is good enough to reach safety.

I can agree with that as well. This victory carried them right behind Milan and they are only one point away. Getting this kind of good results in big games is going to be key for Juventus. They can increase their chance for the title challenge a lot by that. The previous season was really bad for them and they aren't even in a European cup now.

Allegri must have a big responsibility now to carry this team to a good success this season. As they won't have as tight schedule as most of their direct competitors they had better take advantage of it.

I can't be sure about anything when it comes to Kaoru Mitoma honestly. Because the progress he has made so far is really big. Brighton signed him for only 3 million euros but he has increased his value to 50 million euros in a year. Of course coming to one of the biggest European leagues already increases it but his great performance has also been effective.

He still has 4 more years on his contract. However signing for bigger teams might still attract him quite much next summer. I wonder whether Brighton can hold onto him.

Bellingham couldn't score against Sevilla and didn't become the savior this time. However he is still keeping a really consistent performance in general. Because I don't even remember once that he played poorly in a game. He is always fighting for more and consolidating his place in the starting eleven more at the same time.

I think he is irreplaceable in the starting eleven because of this reason. They had better hope that he doesn't get injured much. Lucky them that he doesn't have a bad injury history. He got injured only a couple of times in his career which were all for a short time only.

Leverkusen can indeed annoy Bayern Munich as long as they maintain this game. They even got one point from Bayern Munich in Allianz Arena before and they did it with a really satisfying game. These are all threats to Bayern Munich for the league championship hopefully. I'm really fed up with seeing the same team being the champions every season. 

Dortmund couldn't use their huge opportunity in the previous season. But Leverkusen don't give the same signal as them. If they keep this ambition to the end they can really go for the title as long as there is opportunity.

We are about to finish the game week with a Tottenham - Fulham game. Bissouma isn't going to be able to play because of the red card he was shown against Luton previously. I believe this is an important loss for Tottenham. Because he has been one of the most consistent players with good performance.

But still I don't think Tottenham will be affected so deeply this loss. Because they have a really solid team play since the beginning of the season. Tottenham have a really good history in head-to-head games in the recent years too. Especially thanks to this high effort I expect a clear win.

There are speculations such as Lionel Messi can sign a loan contract with Barcelona in January. But it looks like Messi has refuted those news about him. I wouldn't have expected him to leave MLS right now either because it doesn't make sense at all. It hasn't been much time since he joined Inter Miami and he is making a lot of money there.

I can only give some probability to Messi's playing for Barcelona a little more before his retirement. But it is hard to predict when he would like to do that. He is 36 years old for now and maybe he would like to play for a few more years.

Hamilton really had a chance to win there. Verstappen's braking issues could have cost him really much. He must be thankful that there weren't more laps left. Even 1-2 laps would have been enough for Hamilton to overtake him. Hamilton really pushed hard and used up most of his tyres. But it was definitely worth it.

I really liked Mercedes' strategy for Hamilton. I expected a similar move from Ferrari for Leclerc but they didn't call him to pit once again. He just tried to finish the race with those used up tyres which wasn't a great idea. If he pitted in lap 40 at worst then he could have also pushed with mediums or maybe even softs.

It was such an unfortunate day for Milan today. Because their performance was actually promising in the first half. Things could have been better for them if they were able to finish the half without that red card. It really ruined their plans I'm afraid. The second half was fully under control of Juventus after that.

Locatelli's winner brought Juventus really important three points. Honestly I didn't expect Juventus to finish Milan's winning streak in San Siro. Probably they couldn't have done it if it weren't for the red card. This week has been in favour of Juventus to get right behind Milan by one point at the same time.

I can't call this performance very well honestly. The first half performance of Barcelona was really poor. I wouldn't have been surprised if they even finished the half 1-0 behind. Thankfully Barcelona started to collect themselves in the second half. We started to watch a much more positive effort from them.

The winning goal still came quite late though but at least they got what they needed from this game. It was the young player Guiu's first game with Barcelona in his career and he must be feeling amazing about scoring a goal only in a minute after entering the game.    He is only 17 years old and I hope this goal makes a good increase in his self-confidence.

Aston Villa - West Ham was the only game today. Aston Villa were the favourite side maybe but I didn't expect a this big win honestly. I know how Aston Villa beat Brighton not much time ago. But it isn't easy to repeat it anyway. However they did it again and won by 4-1 this time. There wasn't a big point gap between these teams normally.

Aston Villa just play their home games very differently. They are even the best home team in the league statistically now. They have won all of their 4 home games while scoring 17 goals and conceding only 3 goals. I wonder what they will do against top teams here as well.

It has been half an hour since the Roma - Monza game started. So far I can't say Roma have been playing impressively. The goal expectation is not far from zero for both teams now. Even though it is quite a boring game I'm still expecting Roma to find a way to win home. They beat Frosinone home before whose condition wasn't much different than Monza.

They can do it against Monza as well. Monza are resisting well for now but it isn't unexpected. Because they haven't been losing a single game in the league for many weeks. They are motivated to do their best against big teams too now.

Hamilton must have been excited for a short time while he was in Verstappen's DRS. But it didn't take Verstappen a long time to open the gap a lot.    It was an ordinary sprint race for Verstappen in which he was again comfortable. Hamilton at least got one more point by hunting Leclerc at the first times of the sprint race.

I still think Ferrari did good in the sprint last night. At least they both got important points for their team. You know Ferrari still have a chance to capture the second position in the constructor standings. They need to do better than Mercedes in the remaining time period of the season.

Just as I thought Stuttgart continued to win by this week as well. I was even surprised to see Union Berlin's being shown as the favourite side by bookmakers. There was a slight margin maybe but still. I wish I was braver and bet on Stuttgart to win. Their odds were around 2.50 as far as I can remember which was pretty tempting. 

Leverkusen are still unstoppable in the league. I mean they have got only one draw so far and the rest of the games ended up with wins. There was another win against Wolfsburg away yesterday. The game was balanced though but Xabi Alonso still found a way to win this.

Chelsea - Arsenal game could have ended worse for Arsenal honestly. Because I wasn't really expecting Arsenal to play this poorly. After Chelsea got 2-0 ahead and kept the advantage for a long time I didn't have much hope about Arsenal to get even one point. Thanks to Robert Sanchez's errors Arsenal managed to get at least one point here.

However this result was surely not the kind of one they hoped to get. Arsenal should have been able to win this game considering their performance so far in the season. The season is still going on good for them in general. But if they want to be a title contender they should give their everything into each league game.

I assume there must be so many people who bet on Real Madrid against Sevilla and lost. Sevilla made a manager change newly and it was difficult to predict how good they would be. They were good in the first half when it comes to balancing the game. Real Madrid started to outweigh them in the second half.

However that own goal by Alaba ruined all the plans suddenly. Maybe Carvajal's quick answer with a goal was some hope but it still ended up with a 1-1 draw. If Valverde's goal in the 4th minute wasn't called offside I wonder how different the game and the result would have been.  

All the favourite sides of the games by bookmakers won today which I didn't expect honestly. Because I thought Inter and Napoli would win but Lazio would stumble against Sassuolo. You know Sassuolo are a team that can make big surprises against top teams in the Serie A. They beat Inter away a month ago for example.

But Lazio were really ready for them especially in the first half. They finished the job in this half already and Sassuolo couldn't create much threat to their opponent in the second half either. Lazio played tough games recently and they are just moving on fully concentrated anyway.

I wouldn't call this a bad start honestly. Because Bayern Munich are only two points behind the leader now. They lost points to Leipzig and Leverkusen so far which were both draws. Apart from that they have been winning their all games in the Bundesliga and Champions League both. Things are much better than the previous season in short.

Today I can just say that their performance wasn't very convincing. The score might be misleading because their goal expectation wasn't very high despite scoring three goals. It was near zero in the second half but they scored a goal even with that.

Liverpool won by 2-0 today maybe but one game could have been played this poorly honestly. After Everton got a red card I thought Liverpool would finish them off easily. But this wasn't what happened. Liverpool still continued to struggle quite much during the game. Despite having the full control they just wasted so many opportunities.

The goals came really late by Salah. He at least put on a show and became the savior. But this team performance needs to be improved for sure. Because it can create some trouble for Liverpool in bigger games later. They need to play more efficiently.

The game between Le Havre and Lens was quite balanced last night. xGs were nearly the same for both teams so I think a draw for this game is quite fair. Lens just can't show the same performance they have in the Champions League. Actually they could have still scored in the stoppage time but the goal was disallowed by VAR due to offside.

9 points in 9 games for Lens which seems really horrible compared to the previous season. They have come to this position from being a title contender previously. The departure of some important players can also have some effect but I don't think it is still an excuse for being this bad in the Ligue 1. They beat even Arsenal in the Champions League in the end.