#title-race

#title-race

"You felt that in the stadium after the whistle the stands are full now. Big, big positive energy," Rohl said. "Danilo scored, this is great. Gassama scored. All the subs tried and helped the team. It was again a great team performance. It feels great with eight wins [in a row in all competitions]. "It's a statement, especially from the point we were at. I spoke about being hunter and this is still where we are."

"I don't want the title to be decided in March. I want to stay in the race as long as possible. If we cut the gap to four or five points at some point, they'll start to reconsider. They'll still come to us. They're not completely out of sight, we want to be there when they make mistakes," BVB center-back Nico Schlotterbeck told Bild (as captured by @iMiaSanMia).

Ange-Yoan Bonny, in for the rested Lautaro Martinez, created an early chance with a run and shot that was parried away by Wladimiro Falcone. Bonny then thought he had won a penalty, but a VAR check ruled that Danilo Veiga had played the ball. Falcone punched away a Nicolo Barella header from close range shortly after the break, then gathered a shot from Andy Diouf as the hosts continued to struggle to open up a dogged Lecce defence.

The Croatian defender sustained the injury in the second half of the 1-1 draw with Chelsea, and had to be substituted immediately. Gvardiol is likely to miss the remainder of the season, and his participation in this summer's World Cup is also in doubt. It comes as a major blow to Pep Guardiola, who is already missing a number of senior players through injury, whilst Rayan Ait-Nouri and Omar Marmoush are still on international duty.

We have had our struggles throughout. We started really well in terms of results, games were really close, then we had a phase of the season where games were still really close but we were constantly unlucky. Now we have been eight games unbeaten but if you say this you feel like: They are flying through the league.' But that is not what we are doing.

Defending champions Barcelona were Spain's "Christmas champions," heading into the break with a four-point lead at the top of the table despite losing the first Clásico of the season against their bitter rivals 2-1 back in October. Despite turning their stadium into a winter wonderland over the festive period, the Bernabéu has not been a happy place for Real Madrid,