Luis Enrique’s honeymoon period as the Barcelona manager appears to be definitely over after his team suffered a 3-1 defeat against Real Madrid in the latest El Clasico. The defeat was more magnified by the fact that Barcelona did not provide a great response to going down against one of the fiercest rivals. Barcelona came into the encounter after not having conceded a single goal in the league up until now, but they allowed their opposition to score 3 past them on a night when it could have gone even worse. Madrid had several counter-attacks and could have easily scored five past on another night with some better finishing.

Still, it is not all doom and gloom for Barcelona since they still lead the table albeit with just one point over Madrid. They are also just two points above current champions Atletico Madrid. Pressure is certainly on Enrique at the moment, but he has downplayed speculation of poor form after this latest defeat. One of the reasons for a number of questions being thrown at Enrique is the concerning form of Barcelona especially against the big teams. They had lost 3-2 to Paris St Germain in the Champions League group stages only a few weeks ago.

Barcelona next play at home to Celta de Vigo looking to getting back to winning ways. “I would have settled for that defeat at the start of the season if we won La Liga, and I would at the end. We’d be delighted. I’d accept losing to anyone if we won La Liga. I’m aware that to win we need to play well. And that would mean that the fans enjoy themselves. At the end of the day, we are joint leaders after nine games and for me it’s much more important to be top of La Liga than to have beaten Real Madrid,” said Enrique.

Mark Hughes has praised his counterpart at Southampton, Ronald Koeman, by saying that he has done a stellar job in his short time at the club. Koeman was appointed as the successor for Pochettino, who decided to join Tottenham in the summer. The summer transfer window was followed by a lot of talk around the club being unable to even fighter relegation battle. Such was the astronomical sale of the important first-team players to the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool. More than £ 100 million was raised due to the departure of names like Luke Shaw and Adam Lallana.

Koeman, though, made Southampton become involved in the transfer window in terms of purchases during the end of the window. The new arrivals coupled with a success of loan stars have made Southampton a force in the Premier League this season. Going into the weekend’s match against Stoke City, Southampton are in the position where they could potentially go second in the table. Hughes says that this is a major achievement from a manager with limited resources at his disposal. Once upon a time, the former Chelsea striker was also famed for overachieving on a limited budget at Blackburn Rovers.

“When it happens in such a short space of time it’s difficult because they lost their manager and they lost two or three key players who had been exceptional for them the year previously. There was perhaps a fear if they didn’t get the right players in, and the right manager, then there could be a difficulty. But in fairness they have not had the issue of being unable to go into the market and spend good money. They’ve had a decent amount of money to work with that has enabled them to get good quality into the building,” said Hughes.

Manchester United have so far been linked with midfielders, defenders, and strikers during the transfer window 2014. However, the transfer deadline day brought up a major surprise after United were linked with an offer for Sampdoria goalkeeper Sergio Romero. The 27-year-old spent the last season on loan at Monaco. It is reported that he is unhappy at the Italian club and is looking for a move elsewhere. The Argentine number one goalkeeper is someone who can provide strong competition to David de Gea.

The Spaniard faced a lot of competition from Lindegaard a few years ago, but the Danish goalkeeper is widely expected to leave Old Trafford at least in January. As a result, a top competitor for the Spaniard is thought to be on the priority for manager Louis van Gaal, who is yet to win his first match as the United manager. There are reports about an offer on deadline day for the 27-year-old goalkeeper, but Sergio Romero has confirmed that he does not know anything about the offer from United. The Premier League outfit, though, were not the only parties interested in signing the goalkeeper, as Portuguese club Benfica are also thought to have made an offer.

Sergio Romero reportedly rejected an offer from Benfica by demanding more money, but the player has quashed those rumours. “I’ve had two or three possibilities but none of them were positively concluded. I’ve not asked more money to go to Benfica and I’ve read I would have refused United. But in your opinion, there is someone able to refuse one of the world’s top club? I want to show my value here, so I’ll be able o find my space. I’ve spoken with the president, the sporting director and coach Sinisa Mihajilovic, who told me that should I do good things, he will give me an opportunity,” said Romero.

In order to overcome the disappointment of losing a number of key players in the last few weeks of the transfer window, Atletico Madrid have been on a spending spree of late. They recently brought in Croatian international Mario Mandzukic from Bayern Munich for a transfer fee believed to be in excess of £ 20 million. This was followed by the signing of a goalkeeper in order to replace Thibaut Courtois. Rather than sign a bargain name, Atletico went on and brought in Benfica goalkeeper Jan Oblak for a fee believed to be close to £ 15 million.

The 21-year-old could prove to be a great signing if he manages to realise his potential. These additions have been followed by the signing of World Cup star Antoine Griezmann from Real Sociedad for around € 25 million. After impressing with the French national team at the World Cup 2014, there was enormous interest surrounding Griezmann. The likes of Arsenal were rumoured to be interested in the 23-year-old, who clearly has a lot of potential. However, the prospect of playing for the current la Liga champions proved irresistible.

After completing the move, Griezmann claimed that Atletico have the capability to win all the major trophy since the coming campaign. Last season, they came close to winning a famous double despite having one of the smallest squads in the division.

“I am an ambitious player and the team will be battling to win every competition it is involved in. But as the coach says, we’ll take it one game at a time, and that means a lot of hard work and effort. I needed to take a leap in my career, to learn new things and I knew that the place to do that is here at Atletico.  I hope to learn a lot from the technical team and also from my new team-mates. Atletico stated an interest quite some time ago, and when they called, they made their intentions very clear,” said Griezmann.