Messi Talked about Premier League and His Best player on Premier League Messi: Rooney, Van Persie & Aguero the Premier League's best..  "There are several quality players in the Premier League like Kun Aguero, who is my friend. I really like how he plays," Messi was quoted as saying by BBC Sport. "Rooney [and] Van Persie are playing really well - they are great players. "No one player is the same as another. I think each player has his own style, and we're all different." Messi has already netted 50 goals in 43 appearances in all competitions for Barcelona in the 2011-12 campaign.

Doubts about the Gunners' form were put to rest on Saturday as goals from Robin van Persie, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Mikel Arteta and Thierry Henry sent their EPL opponents packing Arsenal recorded their first Premier League win of the calendar year after they hammered Blackburn 7-1 at the Emirates this afternoon. Robin van Persie tapped home in the opening two minutes before Morten Gamst Pedersen equalised with a well-struck freekick. The Gunners captain scored an identikit second before turning provider with a sumptuous pass to feed in Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for the third. After the interval Mikel Arteta sunk a low drive from the edge of the area before Oxlade-Chamberlain bagged his second, Van Persie his hat-trick and substitute Thierry Henry put the icing on the cake with a late seventh. It was a display from the home side which quashed any doubts about their proficiency in front of goal, sustaining the Gunners’ assault on a top four Premier League finish. Changes from the sides who both failed to score in their last Premier League outings were few and far between. Steve Kean kept faith with the same line-up, while Arsene Wenger brought in Francis Coquelin and Tomas Rosicky to replace Bacary Sagna and Aaron Ramsey. The home side had no such problems breaking the deadlock this time round, with Van Persie breaching the Rovers defensive within seconds. Coquelin fed in Theo Walcott down the right hand side of the box, who squared for the Gunners captain to tap home into the unguarded net. From there on Arsenal probed, with Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain afforded plenty of time down the flanks. Rosicky fizzed a swerving effort just wide of the left upright before Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny combined in the box for the latter to flick a header onto the roof of the net. Ten minutes before half-time, Pedersen drew the visitors level with their first meaningful effort on goal. Koscielny brought down Anthony Modeste on the edge of the box, allowing Pedersen to step up and curl a left-footed strike beyond Wojciech Szczesny and into the top corner. The Gunners reply was immediate and in near identical fashion to their opener. This time Alex Song found Walcott down the right with a perfectly-executed slide rule pass. The winger took a touch before feeding Van Persie to rifle home. Moments later Arsenal made it 3-1, with Van Persie this time the architect. Walcott ghosted in from the right and found the Dutchman, who danced around the ball to manoeuvre space to slide an inch-perfect ball into the path of the onrushing Oxlade-Chamberlain. The teenager rounded Robinson and slid the ball home. Blackburn’s misery was compounded moments before half-time, with centre-half Gael Givet shown a straight red for a wide two-footed lunge on Oxlade-Chamberlain before Thomas Vermaelen hit the post with a flicked header. Immediately after the interval Arsenal had the ball in the net again, with Arteta striding onto a half-cleared corner to send a low drive beyond Robinson’s dive. The scoreline stayed that way for only a matter of minutes before Oxlade-Chamberlain doubled his account for the day. Walcott again caused mayhem down the right when he drove inside, evaded a couple of challenges and fed the ball to the teenager, who took a touch to steady himself and fire an effort inside the near post. On the hour mark Arsenal made it six, as Van Persie completed his hattrick. Oxlade-Chamberlain found Coquelin with a raking ball out to the right as the young Frenchman darted past Martin Olsson and found the Dutchman who sent the ball in from eight yards out.

Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo moves level with Trans Narva star Aleksandrs Cekulajevs in the race for the Golden Shoe The Portuguese netted two penalties as his team swept Athletic Bilbao aside to move to the summit of the rankings, with Lionel Messi hot on his heels Two penalties in Real Madrid's 4-1 victory over Athletic Bilbao saw Cristiano Ronaldo draw level with Trans Narva star Aleksandrs Cekalujevs in the race for the Golden Shoe. The Latvian, plying his trade in the Estonian league, has scored an incredible 46 goals this season, and led the table until the Portuguese star's double. A Lionel Messi hat-trick in Barcelona's thrashing of Malaga ensured that the Argentine remained hot on the heels of his nemesis, and saw the 24-year-old pull away from Robin van Persie, who managed a solitary strike in Arsenal's 2-1 home defeat to Manchester United. CSKA Moscow's Ivorian striker Seydou Doumbia finished the Russian season with 24 goals, and currently sits in fifth place, while Trabzonspor's Burak Yilmaz scored his 22nd goal during his side's shock defeat to Karabukspor. Bundesliga duo Mario Gomez and Klaas Jan Huntelaar have taken their battle for the domestic Golden Boot to the European stage, and the Bayern Munich man sits two points ahead of his Schalke counterpart, with the Dutchman level on points with Newcastle's Demba Ba. Manchester City's big money signing Sergio Aguero is in 10th place courtesy of 14 goals to date in his debut Premier League season. History & How It Works In 1967-68, French football magazine L'Equipe opted to hand out an award to the top goalscorer in all European leagues for his good performances during the season. Between 1968 and 1991, high profile names such as Eusebio, Gerd Muller, Ian Rush and Marco van Basten won the coveted trophy. However, the gap between big and small leagues started to grow in the early 90's and L'Equipe decided to make the competition unofficial after the Cyprus Football Association (CFA) issued a protest in 1991. Darko Pancev won the award that season with 34 goals, but the CFA claimed that a player had scored 40 goals in Cyprus that term. Adidas, sponsor of the awards, still handed out the trophy until 1996 before European Sports Magazine (with L'Equipe as a member) decided to make the title official again. ESM divided all European leagues in three groups according to strength, and attached to each group a quotient by which the number of goals is multiplied to obtain the player's rating. The European Golden Shoe was thus no longer necessarily handed to the top goalscorer, but to the player with the most points. The weightings are determined by the league's ranking on the UEFA coefficients, which in turn depend on the results of each league's clubs in European competition over the previous five seasons. Goals scored in the top five leagues according to the UEFA coefficients are multiplied by a factor of two, and goals scored in the leagues ranked six to 21 are multiplied by 1.5. Goals in all other leagues are all worth one single point. This measure has prevented players from the so called weaker leagues from winning the European Golden Shoe, since a goal scored in, for example, Armenia, Estonia or Azerbaijan carries less weight than a goal scored in Serie A, La Liga, Bundesliga or the Premier League. Players such as Thierry Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo, Diego Forlan and Lionel Messi have won the European Golden Shoe in the past few seasons.