The weekend’s action saw records broken and changes in the table across Europe’s premiere divisions heading into the festive period.
Napoli’s dramatic 2-1 win over Inter ensured they will start December top of Serie A for the first time since the 1989/90 campaign, when they last went on to lift the Scudetto, whereas Barcelona maintained their six point gap over Real Madrid with a comfortable 4-0 win over Real Sociedad.
Meanwhile, in the Bundesliga and Ligue 1, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain have already got one hand of their respective league titles after remaining unbeaten in the league for the 14th gameweek in succession.
And finally, dropping points against Manchester United saw Leicester replaced at the top of the Premier League by Manchester City.
In terms of player rankings, there were also changes to the top 10 ranked players across Europe’s main leagues. Despite setting a Premier League record of scoring in 11 consecutive matches, Jamie Vardy actually fell three places to ninth and is now only marginally ahead of the likes of Gonzalo Higuaín and Nolito.
Higuaín’s brace against Inter on Monday night means he is now three goals away from reach 50 Serie A goals, having only moved to Napoli in July 2013. The Argentina international has now scored at least two more goals than any other player in Serie A this season (12) and his latest match-winning performance was enough to see him move up seven places to take his spot inside the top 10 ranked players across Europe’s top five leagues.
As well as Higuaín, Angel di Maria and Henrikh Mkhitaryan were also new entrants having entered the weekend 12th and 16th, respectively. However, Di Maria registered two assists in PSG’s 4-1 win over Troyes over the weekend meaning he has now played a direct role in three goals in his last two league outings.
As for Mkhitaryan, there was no goal or assist in Borussia Dortmund’s 4-1 win over Stuttgart, but he did complete more dribbles in a league match than any other player in the Bundesliga this season (10).
There was no change at the top of the leaderboard, with Neymar still continuing his stunning start to the season. In fact, in November, the Barcelona No.11 averaged a stunning WhoScored rating of 9.61 over his four league appearances and even Lionel Messi’s return to the starting XI didn’t prevent him from earning a perfect 10 rating in their win over Sociedad.
