Real Betis 3 Barcelona 5
Barcelona are the entertainers of world football. In a football world that many are saying that’s losing individual brilliance, Hansi Flick’s Barcelona are by far and away the most entertaining team to watch in football at the minute, they’ve scored 47 goals in the league so far this season 15 more than Real Madrid who many would argue have a better attack than Barca but what Flick’s side sacrifice defensively, they more than make up for it in the attack scoring 5 against a Betis side who are no joke at home.
Ferran Torres is such a confusing player. There are times when you watch Ferran Torres and you wonder why Flick continues to play him when he misses chance after chance but this game showed us yet again that you can never doubt a striker in Flick’s system. When you play in a team that consists of creative players like Yamal, Pedri Rashford etc you are always going to get chances and Ferran took them today scoring a brilliant hat-trick, it now puts him on 13 goals this season in all competitions but I still think Barcelona need to buy a striker if they are to go up another level and win the Champions League.
Pedri yet again shows why he’s the best midfielder in the world. I’ve said it before and I’m going to keep saying it but Pedri is easily the best midfielder in the world at the moment, his coolness with the ball matched with his vision is a recipe for constant control for Barca and he provided another 2 assists in this game. Some of the combinations between Pedri and Yamal in this game were out of this world and you wonder if Real Madrid are going to be able to keep up with them if they maintain this level in Spain.
Has Yamal found a new position in this Barca team? With Roony Bardghji coming into the side for this game him and Yamal were interchanging throughout the game with Yamal finding himself more centrally in many parts of the match. Betis couldn’t get to grip with Barca’s attack conceding goal after goal and Yamal’s position played an integral part in opening up Betis for the goals.
Marcus Rashford has to start performing if he wants to keep his place. As a United fan it’s been great finding Rashford get a new lease of life at Barcelona but I fear with Raphinha coming back his minutes are going to be limited in this Barca side, that’s why it was important for him to have a good performance in this game but it just didn’t click for him at all. When he went clean through on the Betis goal you thought this was the moment to start scoring again but he dragged it needlessly wide with Hansi Flick on the side looking disappointed. Barcelona undoubtedly look a better side with Raphinha in the team and you wonder if Rashford’s time at Barcelona is only going to last a year? I suppose we’ll see over the next few months.