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| Neymar and Luis Suarez celebrate against Leganes |
FC Barcelona made La Liga bounce back when they defeated newly-promoted side CD Leganes 5-1 away from home, seven days after losing to Alaves, another newly-promoted side by two goals to one in surprising fashion.
Lionel Messi scored twice while Neymar, Suarez and Rafinha Alcantara netted one goal each to help Barcelona return to the top two in the standings, three points behind leaders Real Madrid who defeated Espanyol 2-0 on Sunday night. Here are three lessons from FC Barcelona’s win again at Leganes.
THREE THINGS WE LEARNED: LEGANES 1-5 BARCELONA
1. BARCELONA ACTUALLY HAVE A PLAN B
Luis Enrique surprised everyone with his starting lineup against Leganes as it didn’t feature any right back. It was then found that he played a 3-4-3 formation with Jordi Alba and Rafinha Alcantara playing as left and right central midfielders respectively. Although it was not the best of performances, the system actually worked out in outstanding fashion.
Although it made Barcelona vulnerable in defence, giving Leganes time and space to play in the final third, Barcelona attacking prowess was too hot for the Leganes defence to handle despite the fact that they played 5 men at the back. It was like an all attacking formation and Barça having 4 midfielders against Leganes’ 4 with Messi-Suarez-Neymar in front destroyed Leganes and they couldn’t cope, hence they conceded five and were lucky not to let in more.
The linuep was not for the tactics alone, but also gives room for players to get minutes, like Rafinha who ended up playing perfectly.
2. MESSI-SUAREZ-NEYMAR TRIDENT IS UNSTOPPABLE
I know you probably might have learned this before but it showed twice as it did in the past against Leganes. Barça didn’t play outstandingly well overall as a team and it was more of the genius of the MSN Trident that won the game for the Catalans. They grabbed four of Barça’s 5 goals and created their four goals by themselves, making it look so easy. They got their 10th goal and 9th assist in two games after the Leganes match, a hilarious number. They will need to be on top form once again against Atleti in midweek.
3. PACO ALCACER IS STILL ADAPTING
Barça paid 30 million Euros to get Paco Alcacer from FC Barcelona, the star has already featured in two games, starting once but is yet to open his goalscoring account for the club for understandable reasons. He didn’t see much of the ball against Alaves as Luis Suarez would have, mainly because he’s still understanding the process of playing as a top striker in Barcelona.. his movement have been great but he doesn’t drop as deep as Luisito to get the ball and cause more problems, something he’ll learn very soon.
He had the ball in the back of the net against Leganes but was ruled out for offside and also came close to scoring from a Jordi Alba pass.. his performances have however shown more positives than negatives and it only takes time.
