Barcelona's Malfunctioning Midfield Needs to Be Adjusted by Luis Enrique

A Barcelona midfielder has not provided a La Liga assist since the opening day of the season. That's quite an astonishing statistic.

Almost as bad is the fact that aside from one goal by Xavi Hernandez and two by Ivan Rakitic, they haven't been scoring much either.

Lionel Messi and Neymar have been taking the weight of the team on their shoulders this season.

The Brazilian particularly has stepped his game up a gear, a vast improvement on the hit-and-miss, patchy forward we saw last season.

Messi, meanwhile, was in sublime form at the start of the season, but his last few games have been worrying.

He scored twice against Ajax in the Champions League but has not netted for three games in La Liga, despite being (or perhaps, because he is) on the cusp of breaking Telmo Zarra's all-time top scoring record in the division.

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So what is the reason for the terrible state of Barcelona's midfield? After all, that used to be where the team's heart and soul was. The Sergio Busquets, Xavi and Andres Iniesta combination was the essence of Barcelona.

Now it's all about the forward line, and there lies the problem. Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez are all fantastic players but none of them care much about defending.

When you play with Pedro and Alexis Sanchez in the attack, they both know and appreciate they have other jobs to do than trying to create.

While neither are particularly good at defensive duties, they at least tried to fulfil them, taking some pressure off the midfield.

But the current strikeforce is far too good at scoring goals to worry about defending them. Nobody in their right mind would ask one of Messi, Neymar or Suarez to curb their attacking instincts and track back.

Messi drops deep sometimes, but it's purely to get the ball when his team are struggling to move it forward in a timely fashion.

Sport's Josep Capdevila provides some interesting statistics about Barcelona's midfield.

He writes: "Last season Cesc, Iniesta, Xavi and Busquets had 23 assists, an average of 0.6 per game. By contrast 2 in 11 games so far gives an average of 0.18 per game. Last season Cesc, Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets scored 15 of the 100 Barcelona goals, but this season there are just 3 in 25."

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Individually, none of the players in midfield are performing to the required standard. That might be because of injury, in the cases of Rafinha and Busquets.

A potential solution is to drop the latter and play Javier Mascherano in midfield, at least until Busquets feels he is in prime condition.

That will affect the way Barcelona play; Busquets likes to build attacks, whereas Mascherano is all about destroying the other team's.

But then giving Rakitic a more important role alongside Mascherano may help him too. If he becomes the key player who has to deliver the ball to the forwards once Mascherano has won it back, he will pick up more assists, and in turn, Barcelona will score more goals.

Iniesta, meanwhile, as brilliant a player as he is, seems to have difficulties with Barcelona's new setup.

With the wide forwards playing narrower, and Messi dropping back, Iniesta doesn't have a lot of room on the pitch. He's squeezed into positions he's not as comfortable playing in.

This is not to say there's no role for him at Barcelona, but it certainly needs to be worked on.