Weekend Club Review: Europe, the Big Five

Manchester United put on a flat display Saturday at Old Trafford, and while people will want to talk about the validity of the match's last two goals, the take-away from their 2-1 loss to Chelsea should be their poor overall play.

"Poor" is too strong.  Non-threatening is better.  The team never seemed a serious threat to worry Petr Cech, with Chelsea allowing their only goal as consolation in the 81st minute.

This is where I'm supposed to say something about Wayne Rooney's absence, but I'd rather concentrate on two other people:  Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tévez.

Two years ago, Alex Ferguson completed a long fascination with the skilled Bulgarian when he bought Berbatov from Tottenham.  His acquisition unsettled Carlos Tévez and was the first thing that pushed the Argentine toward Eastlands.

With Wayne Rooney unable to play Saturday and Dimitar Berbatov unwilling to be a forward (constantly abandoning his positioning), I could not help but wonder how Manchester United would have done had they kept their faith in Tévez.

For Chelsea, Carlo Ancelotti deserves credit for being brave enough to stay with his lineup from last week's Aston Villa win, a lineup that kept Didier Drogba out of the starting XI.  Ancelotti has resurrected his team's psyche.  As a result, the Blues are two points up in England and primed to snap United's string of three straight titles.

Elsewhere in England, Manchester City is fourth after their 6-1 win at Burnley, where the Citizens set a record for fastest four goals in a Premier League match (20 minutes).  They ascend thanks to Tottenham's loss, a poor showing at the Stadium of Light, losing 3-1 to the Black Cats.

Other important results:  Liverpool drew 1-1 at Birmingham City, and West Ham moved one point above the drop with their surprise draw at Everton.  But click here for more about England.

Germany:  Goals one minute apart from Franck Ribèry and Thomas Müller had Bayern Munich up two within 26 minutes at Schalke on Saturday.  Kevin Kuranyi's response five minutes later restore the match, and Hamit Altintop's second yellow card created the next fifty minutes' drama.  But Bayern held out, snapping their two match losing streak and restoring themselves to the top of the Bundesliga with five matches left to play.

Bayer Leverkusen ensured it would stay a two team race by losing at Eintracht Frankfurt, 3-2.  Stefan Kießling had two goals to put Bayer up 2-1, but Daniel Schwab's 49th minute red card set the table for Caio's equalizer and Maik Franz's late winning.

Bayer is now six back of the leaders but only one point ahead of Borussia Dortmund, who got goals from Kevin Gorßkreuta and Neven Subotic to down fifth place Werder Bremen, 2-1.

France:  Olympique Lyon is first in France.  I'm not kidding.  They jumped from fifth to first even though they had the toughest weekend match amongst the six teams vying for the Ligue 1 title.

Lyon beat Stade Rennes 2-1 on Saturday thanks to goals from Michel Bastos and Lisandro López.  That allowed them to jump Bordeaux (1-2 losers to 11th place Nancy), Montpellier (0-0 against Monaco), Auxerre (1-1 versus Paris St.-Germain) and Lille (1-0 loss to Valenciennes).

The only other winner amongst the title contenders was Marseille, who registered a 1-0 win over Lens on Sunday.

Lyon, Montpellier and Auxerre all have 57 points, with Lyon having the best goal different.  Bordeaux and Marseille have 56 points, each having two matches in hand, while Lille is now three points back.

Spain:  Barcelona and Real Madrid stayed on track ahead of next weekend's Clasico.

Barça got two goals from Bojan Krkic and another from Lionel Messi in posting a 4-1 win at the Nou Camp.  Unfortunately, the Blaugrana also got news that Zlatan Ibrahimovic will miss Tuesday's return leg against Arsenal, having picked up a knee injury.

Real Madrid got goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuaín while cruising to a 0-2 win at Racing Santander.

Still tied at the top of La Liga, Real Madrid and Barcelona are 21 points ahead of third place Valencia.  Having won the season's earlier meeting, Barcelona needs only a draw this weekend to win the season series with Real Madrid and the first tiebreaker.  Where Barcelona and Real Madrid are rarely dropping points in Spain (each are on pace for just short of 100 points), that tiebreaker may be enough for Barcelona to retain their title.

Italy:  The three teams atop the table in Italy all won, leaving Internazionale one point ahead of Roma, with Milan clinging desperately to their title hopes.

Inter got two goals from Thiago Motta and a goal for Mario Balotelli in his return to the team, downing Bologna 3-0 to move to 66 points with six matches left.

Roma get an early goal from Mirko Vucinic and made it hold-up, 1-0 at Bari, while Milan needed an own goal from Davide Astori to decide their 2-3 win at Cagliari.

Perhaps the biggest news from Serie A is the continued implosion of Juventus, who are in seventh after their 3-0 loss at Udinese.  The Old Lady went back to four at the back but still could not stop Alexis Sánchez, Simone Pepe, and Antonio Di Natale.  With Inter and Roma leading their Coppa Italia semifinal ties, seventh place should still qualify for Europe, but should Fiorentina or Udinese pull a Coppa upset or if Juve's poor form continues, we could again see Juventus out of Europe.