Neymar's 200th Career Goal Underlines Brazilian's Importance to Barcelona

It was a special night for Neymar as he strode out confidently for Barcelona against Eibar on Saturday evening for two reasons.

Despite his time at Barca being peppered with injury concerns, his 50th appearance in Blaugrana was a reason to celebrate.

A shame, then, that the landmark was overshadowed by Lionel Messi and his assault on La Liga's all-time scoring record.

"Goals pay the rent" was a famous quote from BBC's David Coleman that perfectly applies here. Not to Messi, mind you, but to his young Brazilian counterpart.

That's because his exquisite volley against Eibar was the 200th of his fledgling career.

Two hundred goals at 22 years of age is an astonishing statistic, regardless of the standard of competition in which they were scored.

This season, Neymar is giving Barcelona fans cause to be excited.

Now fully settled, we are beginning to see the Neymar of Brazil's national team for the Blaugrana.

Neymar has been firing from the get-go. His eight La Liga goals are already just one behind his total from all of last season, per WhoScored.com.

Aside from that potency in front of goal, Luis Enrique has clearly worked on Neymar's off-the-ball movement so that he now finds himself in more dangerous territory when receiving a pass. As a result, he is much more effective and productive than previously.

Last season's penchant for caressing the touchline has been replaced by an altogether more hungry and menacing work ethic.

Of no use to anyone on the periphery, the level of his involvement during this campaign is one of the main reasons why the Catalans find themselves in such a great position.

Messi will continue to trouble the headline writers for the foreseeable future, but once he has written himself into La Liga folklore again, it's worth directing a little more attention the way of Neymar.

He maintained his goal-per-game ratio this season, per FCBarcelona.com, at least for another week. Throw in his form for the national team and it's easier to understand why many expect big things from the Brazilian at present.

As he has shown many times before, he doesn't have a problem delivering on the world's biggest stages.

With El Clasico on the horizon, a fixture in which he excelled last season, is anyone prepared to bet that he won't take the plaudits ahead of his more celebrated team-mates?