Jude Bellingham is back! El Clasico winners and losers as Real Madrid take control of La Liga title race while Lamine Yamal learns to do his talking on the pitch on day to forget for Barcelona's teenage wonderkid

There was a sense that Bellingham needed a big performance here, if only to reassert himself. The Englishman had been strangely forgotten in the Madrid consciousness, in part due to the excellent performances of Guler while Bellingham recovered from his summer shoulder surgery.

This, though, was a game that showed the levels between the two. Bellingham was asked to play as a right-sided No.10, though covered pretty much every blade of grass. Going forward, he was dynamic, while off the ball he harassed and harried Pedri, largely marking the Spaniard out of the game. He was good value for his goal, and on another day, might have had one or two more.

This is the Bellingham paradox of sorts. He can produce this kind of performance whenever asked, but hasn't done it enough since his remarkable debut season in Spain. It is easy to forget, though, that he won't turn 23 until June.

And with his England place apparently in doubt, this was the statement showing he needed to remind everyone back home of his ability. Thomas Tuchel better have been watching...

Yamal is human after all. All eyes were on the Barcelona teenager ahead of kick-off in part due to him having claimed on social media that referees favour Madrid - something that didn't go down too well in the Spanish capital. Yamal then doubled down on that sentiment in the hours before the game with an Instagram story that referenced the kind of stick he regularly gets from Madridistas (tensions are no longer stoked in press conferences, it seems).

The issue is, these kinds of sentiments tend to need to be backed up by actual showings of impressive football, and Yamal failed to produce anything like his best. He has been fighting through injuries for a couple months now, and he subsequently looked a step off it in the biggest game of the season to date.

Yamal managed just two shots - neither of which were on target - and was rather limited as a creative force. In fairness, Madrid defended him well, too. Alvaro Carreras was on him from the first minute while and Dean Huijsen offered plenty of help. It is true, too, that Yamal was lacking in quality support without Lewandowski and Raphinha, but these are the kind of games you now expect the youngster to take over.

By the end of it all, he was left arguing with a furious Dani Carvajal, who claimed the teenager 'talks too much'. Maybe he's right. There will be other days for Yamal; this just wasn't a very good one.

Madrid have now played two big games this season, winning one and losing the other. In the first, a 5-2 drubbing at the hands of Atletico Madrid, Xabi Alonso didn't really change anything. He went with his version of a 4-4-2, and didn't offer much to confront the entirely predictable, long-ball football that Diego Simeone would play. Real deserved to get hammered.

But here, Alonso adapted. Eduardo Camavinga was a surprising selection but was deployed to shut down Alejandro Balde's surges up the left, while Bellingham was given a little more positional freedom and Mbappe's instructions were clear: run straight forward very fast. The result was a Madrid drubbing in the first half.

And then, in the second, Alonso tightened things up. Realising Barca were tired and lacking in ideas, he instructed his side to bunker in. Los Blancos' shape was excellent, and Barca's only real chance came from a fluffed Jules Kounde run in behind - the kind of effort you'd image Alonso would be fine to surrender.

His credentials as a tactician could never truly be questioned, but this was Alonso's best day yet in the Madrid dugout.

As for the other bench... Well, technically, Hansi Flick wasn't there. That was occupied by Marcus Sorg, Barca's assistant manager who stepped in for the German after Flick was sent off against Girona last week.

Flick, could be seen high in the stands, watching from afar, and he must have hated what he saw. Barca were poor at both ends, and outworked in the middle. Their signature high line was repeatedly exploited by Madrid, and even if they did successfully catch Mbappe offside on a couple of situations, it proved to be an act of suicide for the first goal.

At the other end, their attack was non-existent. Ferran Torres is an agreeable back-up striker who can tag in against lesser opposition, but he looked lost here. Fermin, meanwhile, lacked muscle in midfield and conviction in attack despite netting the equaliser.

Flick can, and surely will, point to the injury issues that have plagued Barca as part of a reason for this loss, and there's a point to be made there. But he is also now five points behind his arch rivals in La Liga, meaning their title defence is already at real risk of failing.

Yes, Mbappe missed a penalty in this game, and had Barca found a way back into the match, then the Madrid No.10 would have come in for understandable criticism.

But otherwise, Mbappe was magical. He had the ball in the net three times, including when he smashed a bouncing ball past Wojciech Szczesny from 25 yards, only for it to be revealed that his shin was in an offside position. Mbappe's actual goal was the kind of arrowed finish only he seems to be able to produce, a snipe with his right foot, sent sizzling past a helpless goalkeeper. He has now scored in seven straight La Liga games, and has 16 in all competitions this season.

But perhaps the best part of his performance was his work out of possession. Mbappe ghosted to the left for all of last campaign, and showed little interest in defensive work. Here, however, he held a central role, pressed, and kept things tidy towards the end as Madrid held on to their lead.

It's been a wonderful season so far for Mbappe, and this was one of his best showings.

Oh Vini, why did you have to do that?

In the first 10 minutes, this looked like one of those Vinicius Jr classics, the kind of game where he looks at Jules Kounde, laughs, and then eats him for breakfast. He was unlucky not to win a penalty and was at his buzzing best throughout the first half, with only a decisive pass or shot missing from his game.

After the break, however, Kounde remembered how to defend and locked in on the brilliant Brazilian, who was subsequently silenced. And then, Vinicius created another moment of controversy for himself. 

Alonso took the relatively sensible decision to replace Vinicius with his fellow Brazilian, Rodrygo, with 20 minutes to go, but that did not go down well with the Madrid No.7. Vinicius threw a remarkable tantrum, ignored his manager, and went straight down the tunnel - though he did later re-emerge on the bench. He went on to got involved in the post-game scuffle, and had to be pulled back from international team-mate Raphinha at one point. 

Alonso asserted after the game that he was happy with Vinicius' showing, and insisted that he would deal with his antics in private. It is equally true that elite footballers want to stay on the pitch in big games. But Vini did himself no favours here with a silly show of petulance.