Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi netted second-half goals at the Estadio de la Cerámica to cement Blaugrana’s five-point cushion at the summit of the league.
Here, we look at three discussion points from the clash on Sunday night.
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ANOTHER RECORD FOR LIONEL MESSI
Lionel Messi wrapped up the points by netting his 18th goal of the season, and that took him to yet another personal milestone as he equalled Gerd Muller’s record of 525 competitive goals scored for a single club in one of Europe’s major leagues.
Legendary German goal poacher Muller recorded his tally during a glittering career with Bayern Munich between 1964 and 1979, landing four Bundesliga titles and three consecutive European Cups in 1974, 75 and 76.
His 525 goals were achieved in just 572 games, whereas Messi has needed 607 appearances for Barca to reach the same figure. But Messi, of course, still has plenty of years ahead of him and will surely end up setting a new record which will probably never be broken.
And the milestone was achieved in suitable style as he received a through ball from Sergio Busquets, left two Villarreal defenders falling over each other as he burst into the box and smashed an unstoppable shot into the back of the net. Legend at work.
Genius: Messi.
BARCELONA CONTINUE TO BE EFFECTIVE…BUT LARGELY DULL
Ernesto Valverde has done a great job in making Barcelona a highly effective collective unit since he took over at Camp Nou in the summer. They are organised, well structured, positionally disciplined and play with good continuity between defence, midfield and attack. But there’s just one problem: more often than not, they are frightfully dull.
Of course, that claim comes with the caveat that no team containing Messi can be totally boring, but aside from the Argentine’s regular sparkles of creative magic this current Barca team is largely predictable and unexciting, containing little of the artistic showmanship which has characterised the team over the last decade.
The end game, of course, is results, and if Valverde succeeds in finishing the job he has started by landing the title, nobody can really complain. But it feels as though the values espoused for years are being somewhat sacrificed, and the team’s lack of flair would leave Valverde exposed to severe criticism if results fade.
Of course, it could well be the case that these first few months of the season are primarily about laying firm foundations and that greater levels of creativity will follow later in the campaign, especially after Ousmane Dembele returns to fitness, but Barca aren’t much fun to watch at the moment.
Valverde has found the winning formula at Barca but at a cost of attractive football.
GLUE GUY BUSQUETS BACK TO HIS BEST
At least, however, Barca’s new style of play does allow Sergio Busquets to shine, and the holding midfielder is undoubtedly back to his best after often struggling during the latter stages of Luis Enrique’s managerial reign.
If Messi is almost single-handedly responsible for delivering the team’s attacking spark, Busquets is the quiet man in the background helping to hold everything together. In American sport he would be called “the glue guy”, and that phrase is rarely more appropriate than when applied to Busquets, whose intelligent positioning and ability to retain possession even when under heavy pressure makes him the perfect player to retain control of the midfield.
One criticism of the Spain international is that he goes to ground too easily in search of free-kicks, and he made himself unpopular with Villarreal fans on Sunday night by taking a dramatic tumble when he was fouled by Dani Raba, with the subsequent red card changing the course of the game. On this occasion, though, Busquets was beyond reproach because Raba’s studs-up challenge really was quite nasty.
Busquets is a key man for Barca.
