I do not think that Atletico Madrid will pass Barcelona, that would be a bit too much. I get how it looks like Real could do that, it's clear that Barcelona had a bad period and they are hoping to get better results, but it would be very very tough for ATM to pass Barcelona, that would require both teams to keep their momentum for a while longer, Barcelona to keep losing or getting draws, and atm to keep on winning more and more, that seems like unlikely if you ask me but of course it's football, anything could happen.
Not that I love Barcelona too much, I am neither Spanish nor catalan, so I don't care, but I do hate industrial football and the "pay to win" aspect of it, so I would rather see Barcelona win this season than Real Madrid.
Even though Atletico Madrid is currently performing quite well, they have swept the 9 matches they have played in all the competitions they have participated in with wins. But I also agree with you, that Barcelona will definitely still be difficult for Atletico Madrid to beat. Because if we look at the head to head record between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, the result is that Barcelona is very far ahead, namely winning the last 5 meetings with Atletico Madrid. So with this, the biggest possibility is that Barcelona can definitely win the match again against Atletico Madrid. Moreover, this match will be held at Barcelona headquarters, this will of course be an additional advantage for Barcelona. Therefore, I also believe that Atletico Madrid does not have a big chance of beating Barcelona.
Apart from that, Barcelona has a match schedule in the UCL follow-up match against Dortmund tomorrow. Then Atletico Madrid is the same, tomorrow they will play against Slovan Bratislava. I think these two matches will be very suitable to measure the current performance of Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.
And in these two matches I will bet on Barcelona and also Atletico Madrid. Because I'm sure if you look at the teams that Barcelona and Atletico Madrid will be playing against, it doesn't look like they will be too difficult to beat. What do you think.