#360view: Chasing pack can hunt down La Liga elite trio

Andy West 02:31 26/09/2016
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  • Chasing Pack: Villareal, Bilbao, Sevilla.

    Considering it is a competition which is often labelled – mainly by people who don’t watch it – as “boring and uncompetitive”, the upper reaches of La Liga is a very congested place at the moment.

    True, the predictable old names of Real Madrid and Barcelona are at the top of the pile. But they have both dropped points on two occasions already this season, and a batch of teams are crammed together just behind them.

    Of all those early-season success stories, perhaps the most pleasing for the neutral is Villarreal, who have overcome a horribly turbulent pre-season to re-establish themselves as one of Spain’s top teams.

    After finishing last season in fourth place, they endured a terrible summer with several key players being sold, others getting injured and – on the eve of the new season – manager Marcelino being acrimoniously fired.

    New boss Fran Escriba stepped into the chaos and rapidly saw his team dumped out of the Champions League in a playoff meeting with Monaco and start the league campaign with an unconvincing draw against lowly Granada.

    Since then, however, it has been nothing but good news for the Yellow Submarine, whose convincing home victory over Osasuna Sunday left them still unbeaten with 12 points from six games, with new signings Alexandre Pato and Nicola Sansone both on the scoresheet.

    Sunday’s victory came, of course, just a few days after Villarreal became the first team in six months to avoid losing in the league to Real Madrid, further dispelling earlier fears that their torrid pre-season would lead to a disappointing season.

    Another team in yellow, Las Palmas, also took points off Zinedine Zidane’s men with Saturday’s exciting 2-2 draw, which saw them twice come back from behind, enhancing the Canary Islanders’ reputation as arguably La Liga’s most attractive outfit.

    It has also been a good few weeks for Athletic Bilbao, who have won four games on the trot with veteran striker Aritz Aduriz – despite now being 35 years old – somehow still looking as good as ever, while rejuvenated playmaker Benat is classily pulling the strings in midfield.

    Of course, Atletico Madrid can never be discounted and their record of two goals conceded in six games suggests they will once again be the hardest team to beat.

    Then there’s Sevilla, who still appear to be finding their feet under new manager Jorge Sampaoli but have shown signs of real promise, with a visit to their Sanchez Pizjuan home ground looking a formidable task for any opponent.

    And those high-fliers aren’t the only teams to make themselves heard in the opening weeks of the season, with top-flight new-boys Alaves, who beat Barcelona and drew with Atletico, and Leganes, another team to take a point from Simeone’s men, also enjoying moments in the sun.

    So is La Liga becoming more competitive? Perhaps so.

    Although it’s unlikely that the likes of Villarreal or Bilbao will be able to sustain a season-long title challenge, the more equal distribution of television revenue means ‘smaller’ clubs have a fresh ability to recruit top talent.

    Villarreal, for example, splashed significant sums on Sansone and Roberto Soriano from Serie A, while Sevilla invested the proceeds of their summer sales on the likes of Franco Vazquez and Wissam Ben Yedder. There’s every chance La Liga will end up being a three-horse race between Barca and the two Madrid clubs.

    But the other horses appear to be catching up, and there will be shocks along the way.

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