La Liga’s title race is now surely over, with Barca boasting an eight-point lead which is effectively nine points due to La Liga’s use of head-to-head results, rather than goal difference, to split tied teams. The teams drew 1-1 in Madrid in October thanks to a late equaliser from Luis Suarez, so Barca hold that advantage.
With that being that case, it means Atletico need to win all their remaining games – and one of them, in early April, is a trip to face local rivals Real Madrid – and hope that Barca lose three of their remaining 11 games.
As Ernesto Valverde’s men have not lost at all so far in the league this season, that looks an extremely forlorn hope for Simeone’s team.
In fact, Atletico will now probably turn their attention to the Europa League, having suffered a major disappointment earlier in the campaign by getting knocked out of the Champions League in the group stage.
Despite the laudable consistency they have shown in competing well with Barca and Real Madrid over the last few years, Atletico have not won anything since taking the Spanish Super Cup at the start of the 2014/15 campaign.
For an intense and enormously competitive manager like Simeone that is far too long a wait for the next piece of silverware, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him rotate his starting eleven for upcoming league games and make the Europa League the number one priority – starting with Thursday’s last sixteen first leg at home to Lokomotiv Moscow.
Irrespective of their success on that front, it is inevitable there will continue to be speculation over the future of Simeone, who has been in charge since 2011 and previously stated he will leave the club if he feels he can no longer take them forward. Is that time rapidly approaching?
