Manchester United soar up latest team form rankings following Mourinho departure
While there is no change at the top of the team form rankings from Europe’s top five leagues after this weekend’s fixtures, two Premier League sides soar into the top ten following convincing victories.
It’s Barcelona that still lead the way following a fourth successive league win at the expense of Celta Vigo, with 13 goals scored and none conceded in that run. The blaugrana ensured that they entered the winter break at the top of La Liga courtesy of first half strikes from Ousmane Dembele and Lionel Messi.
Juventus remain the closest challenger to Ernesto Valverde’s side after yet another win at the weekend, though it was the Old Lady’s third in succession by a 1-0 scoreline. Max Allegri’s side may not be firing on all cylinders at the business end by the clean sheet against Roma was their sixth in a row in Serie A.
There’s a new team on the podium, however, and Niko Kovac will hope that the momentum with which his Bayern side have finished the year will carry over into 2019. The Bundesliga holders secured a fifth consecutive win by a comfortable 3-0 scoreline at the Croatian’s former employers Frankfurt, with Franck Ribery bagging a brace to score for the third league game running.
Liverpool remain in fourth following a hard-fought 2-0 win at Wolves on Friday night, while Napoli drop two places to fifth having struggled to a 1-0 win over comparative minnows SPAL. Meanwhile, Wolfsburg stay sixth having bagged a late winner at Augsburg, moving up to fifth in the Bundesliga having dropped just two points from the last 18 available.
Real Madrid remain in the reckoning in ninth despite skipping the latest gameweek in Spain owing to their World Club Championship commitments, but there are three new names on the leaderboard.
The first is Rennes, who jump from 26th all the way up to seventh following a crushing 4-0 win over Nimes to secure three points for the third game running. Tottenham also make a significant jump from 21st to eighth after romping to a 6-2 win at Everton having fallen behind, but it’s Manchester United that are this week’s biggest climbers.
The Red Devils cruised to a 5-1 win at Cardiff in what was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s first game at the helm and quite the time to put in their strongest performance of the season. The sheer dominance of their display sees United leap from 46th all the way up to tenth to scrape onto the leaderboard and leapfrog the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea in the process after shock defeats for Pep Guardiola and Maurizio Sarri’s sides.
