Winners and losers of the weekend's football: Tottenham tormentor Eberechi Eze strikes again, Cesc Fabregas performs Arsene Wenger tribute act at Como and while Lens' Ligue 1 title hopes suffer major blow

There were just four points separating the top five teams in Serie A at the turn of the year, and an epic title race thus appeared more probable than possible. Less than three months on, though, and it's already over, with Inter now 10 points clear of nearest rivals AC Milan.

The Nerazzurri had piled pressure on their city rivals by beating Lecce 2-0 on Saturday thanks to goals in the final 15 minutes from Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Manuel Akanji - and the Rossoneri once again failed to respond. Having already dropped two points at home to Como in midweek, Massimiliano Allegri's team slumped to a shock 1-0 loss to Parma at San Siro.

There are, of course, still 12 rounds remaining and Milan 'host' Inter in next month's Derby della Madonnina. However, even if Milan were to find a cutting edge up front, it's impossible to see Cristian Chivu & Co. throwing away the title, given they've taken a frankly ridiculous 40 points from the 14 games they've played since losing the last derby all the way back in November.

So, while Inter may be on the verge of an embarrassing Champions League elimination at the hands of Bodo/Glimt, they will at least go into Tuesday's second leg at San Siro safe in the knowledge that the Scudetto is already in the bag.

Real Madrid had to work incredibly hard to reclaim top spot in La Liga. It took seven consecutive wins - five of which arrived under Alvaro Arbeloa - to finally overhaul reigning champions Barcelona last weekend. However, Los Blancos are already back in second spot after a very worrying 2-1 defeat at Osasuna on Saturday.

One could argue that Madrid were a little unlucky to lose in Pamplona in the sense that Raul Garcia's winner arrived in the 90th minute - and after a poor pass inside his own half from Dani Ceballos. However, the unforced error rather summed up the sloppy nature of the visitors' overall performance.

Madrid were particularly poor from a defensive perspective. Thibaut Courtois gave away the penalty from which Ante Budimir opened the scoring, Raul Asencio had a shocker at centre-half, while captain Dani Carvajal was hauled off midway through the second half after being tormented by the pacey Victor Munoz. And it wasn't as if the introduction of Trent Alexander-Arnold in place of Carvajal improved matters, as the former Liverpool right-back failed dismally to spot - and then deal with - the danger in the lead-up to Garcia's fine finish.

However, Madrid weren't much better going forward. Vinicius Jr may have underlined his quality - and character - by scoring for the third consecutive league game, but Kylian Mbappe looked well short of full fitness. Arbeloa also tellingly admitted that with Federico Valverde offering nothing down the right-hand side - not least because he had to regularly drop deep to help out the struggling Carvajal - Los Blancos looked unbalanced, given Mbappe's fondness for drifting out to the left-hand side.

It's clear, then, that while Barca have problems of their own, it's going to take a lot more hard work for Arbeloa to put Madrid back on top of La Liga.

Eberechi Eze hasn't played as well - or as often - as he would have liked since joining Arsenal from Crystal Palace last August. However, he'll hardly be regretting his decision to pull out of an agreed transfer to Tottenham in order to move to the Emirates - and not just because he's involved in a title fight rather than a relegation battle.

With his double in Arsenal's 4-1 win over their most hated rivals, Eze made it five goals in two games against Spurs. Remarkably, only Robert Pires (seven in 11 appearances) and Emmanuel Adebayor (six in seven) have scored more times for the Gunners in Premier League north London derbies.

So, while Eze still has plenty of work to do to nail down a regular spot in Mikel Arteta's starting line-up, the boyhood Arsenal fan has already made himself a cult hero with his fellow Gooners.

With 11 games of the 2025-26 campaign still to play, Chelsea have already equalled their record number of red cards for a single season (eight). As a company man, Liam Rosenior inevitably dismissed the rather obvious connection between the Blues' incessant ill-discipline and the club's insistence on investing solely in young players.

"It's not down to youth," the coach insisted after Wesley Fofana's dismissal in Saturday's shock 1-1 draw at home to Burnley. "It's down to assessing the players and identifying the ones you can rely on in difficult moments."

Rosenior also stated: "I can only speak on my time with the group so far. Up until today, our disciplinary record has been good."

However, Rosenior's only been in charge for six league games and, as Fofana's red underlined, a lack of composure at key moments is a recurring problem that's costing Chelsea dearly in the increasingly intense battle with Manchester United and Liverpool for a top-five finish.

Only West Ham have lost more points from winning positions this season, and only once have the Blues managed to win a game in which they've been reduced to 10 men. So, while Rosenior isn't responsible for the problem, he needs to resolve it - especially as his job could hinge upon qualification for next season's Champions League.

We argued last week that Cesc Fabregas is the most-coveted young coach in Europe right now - and the Spaniard showed exactly why on Saturday. Just three days after upsetting AC Milan - in every sense - by helping Como claim a 1-1 draw at San Siro, Fabregas exposed the flaws in Luciano Spalletti's Juventus during a 2-0 win in Turin, with the visitors' second goal - a slick counter-attack finished off by Maxence Caqueret, provoking comparisons with Arsene Wenger's great Arsenal teams of the past.

"He is like a second father to me, and obviously he worked a lot on transitions, attacking the space, something that is even more important in modern football," the former Arsenal, Barcelona and Chelsea midfielder told DAZN Italia after leading Como a first away league win over the Bianconeri for 75 years. "I learned a lot from him and want my team to do that.

"We also tried to play in a way that made it difficult for Juve today. My lads put in a top performance, and we did something different to other games, which was to score the second goal. Against this kind of talent and quality, if you don’t get the second goal, they will claw you back eventually. I really liked that my goalkeeper only made one save in the whole match, which means we were in control of the situation."

There was no disputing Fabregas' take on the game, while it's also impossible to deny to that sixth-placed Como - who are five points off Roma in fourth, and already through to the semi-finals of the Coppa Italia - are on course to qualify for European competition for the first time ever.

"I cannot say we are going for one target or another," Fabregas added. "Don’t forget we were in Serie B a year-and-a-half ago, so we’ve got to take it calmly, one step at a time, building a culture and identity that can take us to win every game we possibly can."

After finally allowing ourselves to get excited by the prospect of Lens winning Ligue 1, they immediately let us down by allowing perennial champions PSG to usurp them at the summit of the standings.

What really stings is that it was all going so well for Pierre Sage's side at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis on Saturday. Odsonne Eduouard opened the scoring after just three minutes of play before Florian Thauvin continued his remarkable resurgence by doubling the home side's advantage early in the second half.

However, Lens were left in a state of shock after conceding three times in just 10 second-half minutes, as the in-form Folarin Balogun, Monaco captain Denis Zakaria and super-sub Ansu Fati combined to turn the game on its head.

"We messed up," Sage admitted. "We had the victory in our hands, we were playing quite well in the second half, we had sorted things out between the first and second halves, and we were pretty much focused on finishing the match in that way. Our three goals conceded were individual and collective errors."

Such a shocking capitulation was never going to go unpunished by PSG, especially as they were at home to Metz later that night, and Luis Enrique's men moved two points clear with a facile 3-0 win over Ligue 1's basement boys.

The challenge now for a shell-shocked Lens - and it's a big one - is to remain within striking distance of PSG over the next five rounds before they host last season's treble-winners next month.

There was a very real fear that a devastating 4-2 loss to Rangers last week might break Hearts - but Derek McInnes' men are clearly made of stronger stuff, as they underlined by beating Falkirk by the narrowest of margins in a tense encounter at Tynecastle on Saturday.

"Sometimes those 1-0 wins are the bedrock of any success a team can have," the manager said after Islam Chesnokov's decisive strike just before the break in Edinburgh. "I think that's been demonstrated in history."

Certainly, finding a way to win at this stage of the season is of the utmost importance, as underlined by the fact that neither Celtic nor Rangers - who have won the past 40 Scottish titles between them - managed to win over the weekend.

Hearts' city rivals Hibernian did them a massive favour by netting an 87th-minute winner at Celtic Park on Sunday, while Rangers could only manage a 2-2 draw at Livingston. It remains ridiculously close at the top, with the surprise leaders still only four points clear of Rangers, and six ahead of Celtic, who have a game in hand. However, with just 10 rounds remaining, it's clear that a very strong Hearts team has a real shot at winning what would be the club's first title since 1960.

Habib Beye is no stranger to Marseille. He even captained the club during his four-year spell at the Stade Velodrome as a player.

"I feel ready for the pressure," he said last week after being named as Roberto De Zerbi's successor as coach. "Don't come here if you don’t want to be exposed to that pressure. But I don't consider the team sick. It's just a question of form."

De Zerbi would doubtless disagree. He felt the current side had more need of a psychologist than a coach - and we saw why in Beye's first game in charge on Friday, with Marseille slumping to a 2-0 defeat at Brest.

The inexplicably lackadaisical visitors conceded twice inside the opening half-hour, and while they went on to enjoy 68 percent of the possession, they did very little with it. Mason Greenwood then put the seal on a truly miserable evening for Marseille by missing a penalty with 10 minutes  to go.

It should already be clear to Beye, then, that the team is in far worse condition than he initially thought. What's more, the pressure on the players has only increased after both Lille and Rennes closed to within three points of fourth-placed Marseille in the battle for a place in the third qualifying round of next season's Champions League.

It, thus, feels like next weekend's crunch clash with third-placed Lyon at the Velodrome could make or completely break a team that has now gone four games without a win in Ligue 1.

We're still only in February, but as far as Koln coach Lukas Kwasniok is concerned, Ragnar Ache has already got this year's Puskas Award in the bag.

"It's all about second place now," the Pole said after watching his No.9 score a stunning over-head kick in Saturday's 2-2 draw with Hoffenheim.

It was certainly a wondrous strike, one that even took Ache by surprise.

"Everything happened so fast," the 27-year-old admitted. "It was a great cross from Said [El Mala] and I didn't really think about it. I just let my body do its thing. Then, it just flew in like that. I can hardly believe it myself."

He wasn't alone in that regard, with Ache's team-mate Joel Schmied quipping, "He hardly moves in training all week, then he pulls off something like that - it's incredible!"