Sporting Gijon 1-3 Barcelona: Five talking points
Barcelona danced their way to extend their advantage on the top of the La Liga table to six points on Wednesday night, thrashing a willingly depleted Sporting Gijon side 3-1. Lionel Messi’s 300th goal in La Liga in Barcelona’s shirt put the league leaders ahead and his second hit a historic team milestone.Carlos Castro had brought the home side immediately back into the contest after Messi fired home the opener. However, there was no respite for Gijon as Messi doubled his tally for the night quite soon after some wonderful play from Luis Suarez.While Luis Suarez was denied a goal from the penalty by the acrobatics of Ivan Cuellar, the Uruguayan soon made up for the trouble with a superb finish. The strike ensured Barcelona’s seventh win on the trot in La Liga this season.Here are the five biggest talking points from the game at El Molinon.
#1 Lionel Messi is worth writing a history book on
Another game, another record. When it comes to Lionel Messi we have heard it all before, “Cometh the hour, cometh the man”. In Catalan folklore, that might soon be changed to “Cometh the hour, cometh Lionel Messi.”
On a night when Barcelona was made to unlock another stubborn defence where eleven men were running behind the ball, they looked up to the Argentine to sprinkle his magic on the proceedings and he duly obliged. While Sporting Gijon can hardly be blamed for putting a foot wrong, Messi made them believe in ‘divine intervention’.
The Argentine international enthralled us again with two superb goals. His first of the night helped him reach another milestone; this time crossing 300 La Liga goals. His second meanwhile made it 301, just for good measure.
The Argentine also helped Barcelona to reach a milestone of their own, as his second was the Blaugrana’s 10,000th goal. This also made the Argentine talisman scorer of 5.2% of Barcelona’s total La Liga goals and 4.38% of goals scored in all competitions.