There was derby joy for Manchester City and AS Roma this weekend as they beat respective neighbours Manchester United and Lazio. Meanwhile Barcelona and Atlético Madrid extended their own perfect starts in Spain and the big money game in France between Monaco and Paris Saint-Germain ended 1-1.
England
It is the blue side of Manchester that is celebrating today after Man City thumped United 4-1 in a game that was totally one-sides. The win moves Manuel Pellegrini’s side into third place in the table, two points behind Arsenal who beat Stoke City 3-1 and Tottenham Hotspur who win 1-0 at Cardiff. On Saturday, Liverpool’s unbeaten start to the season ended with a surprising 1-0 home defeat by Southampton, while Chelsea beat west London rivals Fulham 2-0 at Stamford Bridge.
Italy
Rafa Benitez’s Napoli continue to impress in Serie A as they beat AC Milan 2-1 in a game where Pepe Reina became the first goalkeeper to save a Mario Balotelli penalty. The Milan strikers day went from bad to worse when he was sent off after the final whistle and will now miss Milan’s next three games.
Level with Napoli at the top of Serie A is Roma, who maintained their perfect start to the season by beating neighbours Lazio 2-0. As for Juventus, Carlos Tévez and Fernando Llorente were both on target in a 2-1 comeback victory versus Hellas Verona, while Inter Milan cruised to a 7-0 triumph at Sassuolo.
Spain
Pedro Rodríguez hit a hat-trick and Víctor Valdés saved another penalty to help Barcelona to a 4-0 win at Rayo Vallecano. Atlético also made it five wins from as many Liga games by easing past Real Valladolid 2-0, a day before Cristiano Ronaldo scored a pair of goals as Real Madrid came back to sweep aside Getafe 4-1 at home.
France
In the money bowl between two of the wealthiest clubs in the world, Paris Saint-Germain and AS Monaco drew 1-1 in Paris with Falcao cancelling out Zlatan Ibrahimović’s early goal. Saint-Étienne would have ended the weekend in first place with a win, but they lost out 2-1 at home to Toulouse, while Olympique de Marseille are without a victory in four matches in all competitions after being held to a goalless stalemate at Bastia.
Germany
Bayern ended Schalke’s winning run with an emphatic 4-0 victory in Gelsenkirchen to move level on points with Dortmund. That is because Dortmund could not hold onto a one-goal lead and drew 1-1 at Nürnberg.
Meanwhile third-placed Bayer Leverkusen rebounded from their Champions League defeat to Manchester United in midweek to beat Mainz 4-1 thanks in part to a pair of goals from summer signing Robbie Kruse.
