Ronald Koeman is confident Southampton can rediscover the form that took them to second place in the Premier League after ending a run of five straight defeats with a 3-0 win over Everton.

Koeman's side surprised almost everybody with their impressive start that came to an abrupt halt when they were beaten at home by Manchester City last month.

Louis van Gaal fears Manchester United's failure to beat Aston Villa will prove a major blow to their hopes of winning the Premier League title.

United's slim chance of reviving their bid to become English champions suffered a setback on Saturday as they were forced to settle for a 1-1 draw at 10-man Aston Villa.

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini believes his team are finally performing like champions, even though there is no immediate end in sight to their chronic injury problems in attack.

City made light of the fact they did not have a recognized fit striker in their squad to beat Crystal Palace 3-0 on Saturday and move level on points -- for 48 hours at least -- with Premier League leaders Chelsea.

Ten-man AC Milan handed Roma their first home draw of the season to leave Rudi Garcia's title challengers three points adrift of leaders Juventus on Saturday.

Roma had recently capitalized on two consecutive draws by defending champions Juve to reduce their deficit to a point.

Real Madrid defeated San Lorenzo of Argentina 2-0 on Saturday to win the Club World Cup and secure their fourth trophy of 2014.

The Spanish giants dominated the final with Sergio Ramos, who had been an injury doubt because of a hamstring strain, and Gareth Bale getting on the scoresheet.

Rajon Rondo tallied six points and nine assists in his Dallas debut as he helped lead the Mavericks to a 99-93 win over the short-handed San Antonio Spurs on Saturday.

The four-time all-star Rondo also had seven rebounds for the Mavericks who snapped a 10 game regular season losing streak to the reigning NBA champions.

Boxing legend Muhammad Ali, who has suffered from Parkinson's Disease for three decades, was in stable condition after being hospitalized with a "mild" case of pneumonia, his spokesman said late Saturday.

The 72-year-old Ali was admitted Saturday and is not expected to remain in the hospital long, Bob Gunnell said.

Lindsey Vonn notched up her 61st World Cup win with success in the women's downhill at Val d'Isere on Saturday.

The four-time overall World Cup champion claimed her latest race by clocking a time of 1min 44.47 sec to edge Germany's Viktoria Rebensburg and Austria's Elisabeth Goergl, who shared second at 19 hundredths of a second behind the American.

Even perfectionist Pep Guardiola could not fail to be impressed with Bayern Munich's spectacular performance in the first half of the Bundesliga season to finish 2014 with more league records.

Arjen Robben's last-minute winner sealed Bayern's 2-1 comeback victory at Mainz as Friday's battling display further extended Bayern's huge lead.

Manuel Pellegrini has challenged his Manchester City players to ignore the absence of their star strikers as the champions aim to increase the pressure on Premier League leaders Chelsea.

With Jose Mourinho's Chelsea not in action until Monday when they travel to Stoke, second placed City can draw level on points with their title rivals by beating Crystal Palace at Eastlands on Saturday.