Barcelona 5-2 Rayo Vallecano: 5 Talking Points

FC Barcelona came back from the international break strong to beat Rayo Vallecano 5-2 at the Camp Nou last night. Neymar scored four goals in an entertaining game which saw Barcelona move to second in the league behind Real Madrid, who also won their game against Levante. The game between Celta Vigo and Villarreal will decide how the league table will look after this weekend’s fixtures.Barcelona started the game strong but missed a couple of easy chances before Javi Guerra scored one for Rayo from a corner kick. Barcelona pulled back two in quick succession though, winning two penalties with Neymar scoring both of them. The Catalans struggled in the second half initially but regained their composure when Neymar scored two more quick goals followed by one from Luis Suarez. Jozabed Sanchez got a consolation goal for Rayo late in the game. Here are the major talking points from the game. 

#1 Neymar steps up in Messi\'s absence

According to Neymar himself, this was his best game so far in a Barcelona jersey. He gave an absolutely thrilling man of the match performance, scoring four goals and assisting another to take Barcelona to victory in the absence of Lionel Messi.

After going down against Rayo, Neymar won two penalties and scored both of them comfortably to secure the lead for Barca. Later in the second half, when things were seemingly starting to go wrong, he brought back life into the game scoring another brace in quick succession. Just a few minutes later, he assisted Luis Suarez for the team’s fifth goal, completing a good night’s work. With this super hat-trick, Neymar is now the top La Liga goal scorer with eight goals.

Suarez had a great game too, assisting Neymar twice and scoring one himself. While he was offside on certain occasions and did miss a couple of chances, he more than made up for it with his performance over the course of the game. If Neymar and Suarez keep performing like this, Barcelona should not have any major problems till Messi and Andres Iniesta are back.