Rival watch: Chastening defeats for Borussia Mönchengladbach and Osasuna ahead of this week's games

Barça face Borussia Mönchengladbach at the Camp Nou on Tuesday in what is the final game of a group in which Barça have already secured first place. The German team travels to Barcelona following an unconvincing display in a 4-1 defeat to Borussia Dortmund. In a whirlwind start to Saturday's clash at Signal Iduna Park, Raffael gave Gladbach the lead, however, this lasted under a minute thankts to Aubameyang's equaliser and a Lukasz Pisczek goal.

Thomas Tuchel's side were too much for the Foals leaving them 13th in the Bundesliga table. The other teams in the group also struggled with Guardiola's Manchester City losing 3-1 at home to Chelsea and Celtic only just managing to beat Motherwell with a final score of 4-3.

Rooted to the bottom

Osasuna have lost for the fifth time in a row today against Sporting and you have to go back to the end of October and a 1-1 draw with Athletic Bilbao for Caparrós' teams last point. Sporting Gijón had lost the last four themselves and this game already had the look of a crucial fixture between two teams who are languishing in the lower reaches of the table.

Sporting played very well and put a struggling Osasuna to the sword thanks to two goals from Carmona either side of a Douglas strike. The result leaves the team from Navarra stuck in bottom place ahead of Sunday's league game against the reigning champions.

Barça stay in second place

As we know, Sergio Ramos' last minute header ensured a draw in the Clásico which maintained the six point gap between the Catalans in second place and Real Madrid in first. However, the positive is that the chasing pack behind Barça failed to take advantage of this situation as they themselves stumbled.

Sevilla lost 2-1 to Granada in a result which saw the team from Granada move up to second bottom as they overtook Osasuna and, more importantly, saw Sevilla miss out on the opportunity of overtaking FC Barcelona. The team from the Andalucian capital will stay in third place on 27 points, one point behind Barça.

The next three teams in the table all only managed to get a draw which means they didn't make up any ground on the Catalan team. Atlético Madrid were held 0-0 at home to Espanyol; Villarreal travelled to Leganés and could also only manage a scoreless draw; finally, Real Sociedad, who held Barça at Anoeta recently, play Deportivo on Monday evening and if they win they will go from 23 points to 26 leaving them two behind the Catalan club.

Copa del Rey

Barça played Hércules in the first leg of the round of 32 of the Copa del Rey last week and will play the return leg at the Camp Nou on the 21st December with the 1-1 score from the first leg giving Luis Enrique's men a slight advantage due to the away goal rule. Hércules moved back into the promotion positions of Division 2B Group III as they beat Atlético Baleares thanks to goals from academy player Salinas and Paco Peña.