FCBARCELONA.CAT

07.12.2009 11:24

Spanish League Round Up Week 13

Barca's win kept them five points ahead of Madrid, who beat Almeria 4-2 at the Bernabeu. Valencia leapfrogged Seville into third with yet another Villa goal, whilst Atletico Madrid and Villarreal both won to confirm their recent improvement.

Valencia closing in on Madrid

It was an incident packed game at the Bernabeu where Madrid came back from 1-2 down to beat Hugo Sanchez's Almeria thanks to second half strikes from Higuain, Benzema and Ronaldo, who also missed a penalty and saw red for two yellow cards. Valencia will go into next weekend's game against Madrid just a win behind them after overcoming Bilbao on Sunday to extend their unbeaten league run to 10 games. In an exciting game at the San Mames, Bilbao's 16 year old wonder kid Iker Munian put the Basques ahead in the second half, but almost inevitably David Villa popped up for his 11th goal of the season to equalise and after Joikili was sent off for the locals, Mathieu made it 1-2 for Valencia before David Lopez missed a penalty that could have given Bilbao a share of the points. Seville drop to third after being held to a 1-1 draw by Valladolid – their second home draw on the run and their fourth game on the trot without winning.

Seven wins out of seven for Mallorca

With Deportivo losing, Mallorca closed in on fifth spot with a 4-1 thrashing of Zaragoza. Arduriz scored twice for Mallorca to take his total to seven for the season and making it seven wins out of seven at the Ono Estadi so far for Gregorio Manzano's team. Zaragoza, in contrast, have yet to win on the road and are now fourth from bottom. Racing are just two points off Zaragoza after what has to be the result of the weekend - their 0-4 demolition of Espanyol in Cornella. Four second half goals, two from the 18 year old Sergio Canales saw off Espanyol, who've not won since October 18th and have now leaked 10 goals in their last three games as they've sunk to 14th, just 3 points off the drop zone. Malaga are still in the relegation places, but at least took a point from their home game against Osasuna to lift themselves off the bottom.

Up turn continues for Villarreal and Atletico

Villarreal, Atletico Madrid and Tenerife all won to confirm their recent turns in fortune.

Atletico won for the second game on the run, beating bottom side Jerez 2-0 on Saturday night with Forlan and Aguero getting the goals. Joan Capdevilla scored twice in Villarreal's 3-2 win over Getafe, who were unable to take advantage of their hosts playing with 10 men for most of the second half after Cani was shown a red. The win takes Villarreal to 11th spot and was their sixth on the run at home in all competitions. Tenerife are also showing signs of recovering from their poor start,beating Sporting 2-1 to take them up to 12th, four points clear of the relegation places.