How Misfiring Barcelona Can Get Lionel Messi Back to His Best

Just what is going on at Barcelona?

With just one win in their last five—and that being an ultimately facile one in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals at home to Atletico Madrid—things have reached “crisis” point for a club that has standards quite unlike any other.

And when Barcelona aren’t in form, we normally ask questions.

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Lionel Messi has failed to find the net or even assist a goal in his last five club appearances—a freakish sentence by modern football standards and one that obviously has to merit thousands of articles pondering just what has gone wrong for the Argentinian magician.

But are both club and player not allowed a few off days?

This “nightmare” run of matches has seen them face some tough opposition, of course.

Villarreal are into the Europa League semi-finals, Real Madrid have some of the best players in the world, and Atletico Madrid are capable of beating anyone on their day. Real Sociedad, who beat Barca 1-0 last weekend, certainly benefitted from the fact that the suspended Luis Suarez wasn’t available to the Catalans that night.

But what of Messi? He’s been scoreless and seemingly friendless over the past few weeks.

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What was noticeable from the Sociedad game—particularly in the second half—was just how deep he was dropping in a bid to get onto the ball and make things happen. With Neymar often seeming marooned on the left and Suarez not available, it created a hole in the centre where the youngster didn’t impose himself.

If anything, Barca were complicating matters by not doing the simple things well.

Without Suarez, Barca manager Luis Enrique should have told Messi to play as far forward as possible, thereby frightening the Sociedad defenders and pushing them deeper.

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When you’re playing against arguably the greatest footballer of all time, you tend to notice him, and if they would have done that, then it would have created space between the lines of defence and midfield for the likes of Andres Iniesta and Ivan Rakitic. Messi would doubtless have benefitted from this.

Suarez was available for the Atletico second leg and will be for what has now become a must-win game at home to Valencia on Sunday evening. Even though he is in remarkable form and is surely Barca’s best player right now, perhaps switching him to the right-hand side and playing Messi in the centre will allow the Barca icon to get back to his best?

Messi’s Uruguayan team-mate is no stranger to playing a little wider, and this is just a starting position anyway. He will, of course, drift inside and look to make things happen in central areas.

But starting with Messi in the middle will both occupy an already-daunted visiting defence and give the No. 10 the opportunity to benefit from a tap-in or two, thereby getting an increasing army of critics off his back.

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Maybe it is just a natural thing for the great clubs and the great players, and maybe it has been exacerbated because Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick in the Champions League in midweek, but Barcelona need to stop this Messi narrative in its tracks before it grows ever more apparent and ever more damaging.

Because the club and the player are intrinsically linked. One cannot experience highs and lows without the other.

Play him in the middle against Valencia, end this madness, and then we can all get on with our lives.

If Luis Enrique does this, then it would be no surprise to see a smiling Messi on the pages of this website on Sunday evening.