Neymar put in a scintillating performance to take Barcelona to the top of the La Liga table with a dominant 3-0 victory over an in-form Villareal on Sunday.
Hours after Luis Enrique’s men defeated the Yellow Submarine with ease, Real Madrid slipped to a 3-2 defeat at Sevilla, meaning the Catalans sit three-points clear heading into the international break.
The visitors held Barca for an hour, but Neymar continued his blistering form with a second half brace and Luis Suarez kept up his goalscoring form from the penalty spot. The Brazilian’s second goal – Barcelona’s third – was a wonderfully taken volley, after he had flicked the ball and spun around a defender to top-off a superb performance.
Barcelona
Claudio Bravo – 7: A commanding presence in the Barca goal, Bravo pulled-off a superb save to deny Castillejo at the end of the first-half.
Dani Alves – 7: Largely untested defensively and was extremely unlucky not to open the scoring early in the second-half.
Jeremy Mathieu – 6: Looked solid enough in defence and even got forward to support the attack on a few occasions, including forcing a good save out of Areola.
Gerard Pique – 5: Looked a little shaky and put in a couple of rash challenges, one of which led to him being substituted with a concussion.
Jordi Alba – 7: Dealt well with the pace and trickery of Castillejo, as well as linking-up well with Neymar down the left.
Sergio Busquets – 7: Looked back up to pace, including a superb through ball to setup Neymar’s opener. Covered the defence well in his deep lying midfield role.
Sergi Roberto – 6: Good in possession and possesses great awareness of his teammares, which makes him the perfect Barcelona midfielder. Despite that, he struggled with creativity and rarely tested the Villareal defence.
Andres Iniesta – 7: If you have Iniesta in your side, then it does not really matter if Roberto is struggling to pull the strings. Iniesta was his usual self, picking out great passes, but surprisingly missed a great opportunity to score in the box.
Munir El-Haddadi – 6: Won his side a penalty for the second successive match, but was fairly quiet throughout before being replaced in the last 10 minutes. It must be tough for any youngster to come into a squad and make headlines alongside the likes of Neymar, Suarez and Iniesta, but he is slowly impressing in the absence of Lionel Messi.
Neymar – 9: The Brazilian was once again Barca’s star man, as he solidifies his position as the third best player in the world behind Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. His finish for the first goal was clinical, while the flick over the head of a defender to create his second was absolutely sublime.
Luis Suarez – 8: Suarez and Neymar is probably the most terrifying attacking duo in world football right now, although Muller and Lewandowski may have something to say about that. Both of them are in top form with 20 goals between them this season, and they have developed an excellent understanding. Suarez got his from the penalty spot, but he also laid on the third for Neymar.
Substitutes
Marc Bartra – N/A: Replaced the concussed Pique late on.
Sandro Ramirez – N/A: Replaced Munir in the last ten minutes with the victory already wrapped up.
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