Five things from a dramatic weekend in La Liga as Atletico Madrid went top after stumbles from Real Madrid and Barcelona.
1. Atletico Madrid now Europe's form team
"If we continue like this, we're only going to fight to avoid relegation," said Antoine Griezmann in late August, after Atletico Madrid had drawn 0-0 on their first ever visit to newly-promoted neighbours Leganes, having finished 1-1 at home to Alaves the week before.
Just six weeks later and Atletico are top of the La Liga table -- having since won four games and drawn the other (at Barcelona.) Griezmann's goal in Sunday's 2-0 at Valencia was his sixth of the campaign, so the France international leads the Pichichi top scorer race. Kevin Gameiro was also on the scoresheet, while Diego Simeone's side were able to see two penalties saved by Valencia stopper Diego Alves and still ease to the three points.
The clean sheet at Mestalla also means Atletico have only conceded twice in their nine competitive games in 2016-17, including Champions League wins against PSV Eindhoven and Bayern Munich. The crisis talk after the first two games is long forgotten now, with Simeone's men suddenly looking like Europe's form side.
2. Zinedine Zidane doesn't know what's going wrong at Madrid
Around the time Griezmann was predicting a relegation struggle, elsewhere in the Spanish capital Real Madrid were in the midst of a La Liga record 16 straight wins, and it seemed Los Blancos coach Zidane could do no wrong.
But now four draws on the bounce in all competitions, three of those in La Liga including Sunday's 1-1 at home to Eibar, have led to talk of an impending crisis around the Bernabeu. The problems seem pretty clear to many fans -- an injury to Casemiro means they have no defensive midfielder to hold the centre of the pitch while everyone else attacks, while playmaker Luka Modric's knee operation means they lack creativity when they have possession of the ball.
Zidane appears (in public anyway) not to agree with this diagnosis. Speaking after Eibar had got a first point against Madrid in La Liga history, he claimed that the team just needed to "work harder" and "show more intensity."
Asking players to battle more is easy, but coming up with a new gameplan to adapt to changing circumstances in his squad is much more difficult. Less than 12 months after taking his first real managerial job, Zidane faces a big test of his coaching skills.
