Barcelona vs Olympiacos: 5 Talking Points as Barca are reduced to 10 men
Barcelona continued to add scalps to their unbeaten run this season with a 3-1 win over Olympiacos in their UEFA Champions League group D match on Wednesday night at the Camp Nou. Goals from Lionel Messi and Lucas Digne were enough to see the Catalan club grab all three points while Olympiacos' Dimitris Nikolaou scored at both ends of the pitch.
Ernesto Valverde's men looked comfortable in spite of going down to 10 men and the result sees the La Liga club at the top of the group - three points ahead of Juventus.
Here are the major talking points from the game.
#1 Barcelona dominate proceedings but goals were hard to come by
With the game at the Camp Nou, there was only one team that was going to dominate the game. Valverde has brought possession football back to Barcelona and they had 70% of possession throughout the game.
The first half saw Olympiacos rarely venture out of their own half. On the odd chance they did, they were quickly shut down and the ball dispatched back to the final third for Barcelona to create more chances.
The final numbers? Possession: 70-30. Shots: 25-3. Touches: 976-515. The only stat Olympiacos outperformed Barcelona were tackles - 19 to 12.
And yet, the home side failed to put away a number of chances in the first half. It was only an own goal that eventually put Barcelona in front when Nikolaou attempted to get in the way of a Deulofeu pass to Messi, only to see the ball come off his shin and beat his keeper.
Barcelona did not score 'their' first goal until the 61st minute.