Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga results from the weekend - September 29

Everton abandon their principles at Anfield

Remember that nine-goal thriller of a Merseyside derby we promised you? Sorry about that. But in our defence, who could have predicted that Roberto Martinez would abandon his principles, his beliefs, and everything he's ever valued and held dear, in favour of something grubby called "pragmatism"? And even stranger, that it might sort of work?

Okay, it wasn't perfect. Unless Martinez is some kind of psychic genius, he's unlikely to have set his side up to rescue a point at the death with a thirty-yard thunderbolt from Phil Jagielka. (Even an actual psychic would put that particular vision down to a misaligned chakra.) And the absence of Daniel Sturridge and ineffectual showings from Lazar Markovic and Raheem Sterling rendered Liverpool blunter than might have been expected. The home side dominated possession and had the majority of the chances, but lacked both the vivacity they possess at their best, and the moments of inspiration to conjure something while underperforming. Though Tim Howard had plenty of saves to make, only one — a flying shoulder-block from Mario Balotelli — truly exceeded the call of duty.

In front of Howard, though, there was much encouragement for Everton. The hugely promising John Stones has surely supplanted Sylvain Distin in the middle of defence, not least because Tony Hibbert demonstrated that he can still do a job as a back-up right back. Muhamed Besic looked mature beyond his years in midfield, and while Gareth Barry spent a lot of time looking much the opposite — immature within his years? — in the process of committing four or five bookable offences, some generous refereeing meant he could spend the rest of his time doing his usual tidy thing.

Of course, there was a knock-on effect further up the pitch. With Steven Naismith tasked with keeping tabs on Steven Gerrard, and with Kevin Mirallas first isolated and then injured, Everton lacked the penetrative running and quick interchanges that characterise their best attacking. Long, hopeful balls to a lonely, right-sided Romelu Lukaku weren't quite as effective. Still, Everton came into the game having conceded thirteen goals in five league games; to have restricted a better team to just one goal, and that from a free kick, will have pleased them greatly. The point was fortunate and will be delightful, but perhaps more important is the evidence that Martinez is willing to break his team if he has to.

Normality restored in La Liga

To say that the La Liga season has been a bit weird so far might be an understatement. Valencia went into the weekend top of the table, and there had not, thus far, been a weekend in which all three of the major powers played well at the same time. Considering the league’s reputation as a two-horse race, hastily modified into a three following the success of Atlético Madrid last season, this is unusual, but that doesn’t even begin to hint at the sort of weirdness we’ve been getting.

Real Madrid, for instance, tossed away a 2-0 lead at Real Sociedad to lose 4-2 in week two. Barcelona had zero shots on target in a 0-0 draw at Malaga last weekend. The only team dropping normal-looking points has been Atléti, whose difficulty in breaking down ultra-defensive teams can only have been exacerbated by the departure of Diego Costa.

It’s taken until the sixth round to get everyone firing on all cylinders. Real Madrid, who’ve been buoyed by Cristiano Ronaldo’s re-emergence as a a genuine force of nature, led things off by dispatching Villarreal 2-0 at the Madrigal, with the frequently-disparaged Iker Casillas playing a major role in the victory and once-and-future centre back Raphäel Varane playing outstanding football once more.

Then Barcelona, led by Lionel Messi (two goals, two assists) and Neymar (three goals), took out a week’s worth of frustration from the Malaga match on hapless Granada, who ended up fleeing the Camp Nou with a 6-0 loss. And then Atléti proceeded to annihilate Sevilla, leapfrogging them in the table with a 4-0 win that could easily have been more.

So La Liga’s top sides ended up scoring 12, conceding none and grabbing all nine pointsavailable. The chaos was fun while it lasted, but this weekend is probably when everything goes back to normal.

Rooney goes back to his roots

Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney comes in for a lot of criticism, most of it justified. While his stats look quite nice from a fantasy perspective — he’s still scoring goals and grabbing assists — there’s something about his play that’s more suggestive of a toddler with sticky fingers than a world-class footballer. He slows down moves. His passes don’t have the zip or accuracy one might expect. He’s no longer bullying defenders as he once did. He plays football as though he’s the ambassador to Earth from the Melted Fudge People.

Putting those flaws in context is important, and none of that context is favourable to Rooney. He was the most gifted prodigy in Premier League history, capable of electric play whenever he got so much as near the ball. He is captain of England and England’s most successful team. He makes around £300,000 per week. And he is so far from living up to expectations that expectations barely have any idea what he looks like anymore.

Yet there are flashes of the old Rooney buried deep in there, and they tend to come out when he has no time whatsoever to react. Most of the time that’s when he’s scoring, as was the case for his phenomenal finish against West Ham this weekend, an instinctive, brilliant effort that got Manchester United off and running for their 2-1 win at Old Trafford.

But those who miss Rooney That Was, the hot-headed genius who strutted around the football pitch as though he owned it, everyone on it and probably everyone watching it too, then backed it up by doing absurd things to his toys, got rather too large a dose of his temperamental history in the second half. With United up 2-1 and Stewart Downing leading a West Ham breakaway, Rooney opted to take the former Liverpool and Aston Villa man out with a professional foul.

Fair enough, that. But since this is Wayne Rooney and not a normal footballer, his version of a professional foul — later described by manager Louis van Gaal as ‘unfriendly’ — was to give Downing a swift kick in the general region of the testicles and then protest at being sent off for violent conduct. The petulant, perpetually angry prodigy had come to the fore once again.

Yes, Manchester United still won, although it was a close, close-run thing. But Rooney, who’d shown that brightest of flashes with his goal, will now sit out all of October with suspension, and it’s far from clear whether that’s even a bad thing for his team. One step forward, one kick back.