It doesn't come as a surprise when an underdog pulls off an upset this season based on recent results. The famous upset of the 2020/21 Premier League season is that of a newly promoted team, Aston Villa, humiliating the defending champions 7 - 2 on matchday 4. But it's still unexpected to see top teams like Manchester City and Barcelona go down the table as we have seen this season. Though they have both played only 8 games out of 38, with 30 more to go, their current position and form weren't expected.
With their current form in their respective leagues, I don't see them rising to the top 4 this year. Both teams lost their matches this weekend, with Manchester City losing 2 - 1 to Tottenham, whereas Barcelona lose 1 - 0 to Atletico Madrid. Though the two opponents are not underdogs, they are still teams they could have beaten on their good days.
Let's recap their last match and their current league standing.
Manchester City - English Premier League
Manchester City is struggling, Pep Guardiola has a problem to solve.
December is fee days upon us and the bottom half of the English Premier League table contains Manchester City. They have picked up just 12 points from eight games - their worst tally at this stage of a league campaign for 10 years.
Their last league outing ended in a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Tottenham.
Barcelona - Spanish La Liga
Barcelona record a new Spanish La Liga low as Atletico Madrid claim a rare win.
Barcelona have made a stumbling start to the 2020/21 La Liga campaign and record a new low in the league as they fell to another poor result in a disappointing 1 - 0 defeat on Saturday, with Atletico Madrid claiming a rare win. This was the first time Atletico Madrid under the management of Diego Someone has defeated Barcelona in La Liga, ending a 20-game winless run.
So far in the current La Liga campaign, the Catalan giants have picked up just 11 points from their first eight games - their worst since 1991-92 campaign.
Ronald Koeman's side have won just one of their last five La Liga games and are currently 11th in the league standings.
This weekend, some top teams like Barcelona, PSG, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, and more all lost points. We may start to see this every weekend. Few games in and it seem likely that we are in for some major shakeups in the rankings of the tops league in Europe.
Despite the worrying statistic for Barcelona and Manchester City, they have still got enough time to turn their fortunes around. The last time Barcelona started so poorly in 1991-92, they did go on to be crowned champions. They will hope to bounce back as soon as possible to increase their chances of challenging for the trophy this campaign.
a lot more surprises on the way.