Player form rankings: Cristiano Ronaldo gunning for top spot in Europe

While the Premier League may have had a break this weekend, the rest of the top five leagues in Europe resumed and it was business as usual for the vast majority of the teams in the upper reaches of each table.

Nevertheless, there is still significant movement in the standings in the WhoScored.com player form rankings, with football’s ultimate individual battle of recent years in the spotlight.

Indeed, while Neymar stays top of the pile following yet another man of the match showing with a goal and assist against Strasbourg at the weekend, his closest rival is now one Cristiano Ronaldo.

The Portuguese was on target in a stunning game with Real Betis at the Benito Villamarin with his eighth goal in five La Liga games and Real Madrid’s fourth in a 5-3 win. In turn he jumped from sixth to second in the form rankings, leapfrogging Lionel Messi, who drops to third in the process.

The Argentine was relatively quiet by his standards in an uncomfortable game for the blaugrana at Eibar, struggling to put the game to bed after Messi had set up Luis Suarez for an early opener. The Uruguayan rises one place to eighth in the standings, but the biggest climber in terms of making the top ten comes from elsewhere in Spain.

Antoine Griezmann is up to 10th from 19th after an all action display in victory over Athletic Club, while Niclas Fullkrug of Hannover also jumps up to ninth with a fifth goal in six matches in stalemate with Cologne.

Elsewhere there is a new entry in the form of Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa of Marseille, with the Cameroon international earning the WhoScored.com man of the match, shielding the defence in a narrow 1-0 win over Bordeaux.

Meanwhile Ligue 1 leaders PSG have two new representatives in the top 20 in the form of Giovani Lo Celso and Angel Di Maria (up 10 and 15 places respectively, while Bayer Leverkusen’s Leon Bailey and Torino’s Iago Falque also rise onto the leaderboard.