Going into Sunday’s match against Everton, Pep Guardiola was faced with the dilemma of having neither of his preferred midfield options available for selection. After Ilkay Gundogan’s cruciate ligament injury in December and Fernandinho’s suspension, the unlikely pairing of Pablo Zabaleta and the once discarded Yaya Toure were left to enact the Guardiola philosophy.
Hold your horses and put away the torches, I’m not here to tell you that Neymar is better than Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.
Although the top two players in the world might still outclass the young Brazilian on the pitch, they are not nearly as valuable as Barcelona’s number 11 according to a study from the CIES Football Observatory.
Three days after Real Madrid heroically set the Spanish unbeaten streak record by scoring at the death against Sevilla in the Copa del Rey, Sevilla returned the favor in La Liga action on Sunday.
Liverpool travelled to the home of their most vaunted rivals and were minutes away from securing all three points, but a Zlatan Ibrahimovic header in the 84th minute rescued Manchester United.
Liverpool appeared to be in control thanks to a series of great saves from the oft-criticized Simon Mignolet on Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Ibrahimovic and an inexplicable handball from Paul Pogba while defending a corner.
James Milner dispatched the resulting penalty with a powerful effort from the spot in the 27th minute.
Luis Enrique opted to leave Neymar, Andres Iniesta, Ivan Rakitic and Gerard Pique out of the starting XI for Barcelona’s match against Las Palmas at the Camp Nou on Saturday, even though the side from the Canary Islands is eighth in La Liga.
But this is Barcelona, and they thrashed their opposition behind the primary strength of Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi. Suarez scored a brace and Messi added one of his own, bringing them both to 14 La Liga goals on the season as joint top-scorers.
According to multiple reports, Chelsea have dropped Diego Costa for Saturday’s match against Leicester City amidst an argument between the Spanish forward and the Chelsea training staff and a lucrative offer from the Chinese Super League.
With Barcelona desperate to sign Lionel Messi to a longterm deal (his current contract expires in the summer of 2018), the club have reacted quickly to negative statements concerning Messi by their head of sporting relations, Pere Gratacos, by removing him from his post.
On Friday, Gratacos said, “Messi would not be as good without Iniesta, Neymar and co. He’s the best, this is true.”
Christian Pulisic scored another goal for Borussia Dortmund in a friendly over the Bundesliga winter break, notching the opener in his sides 3-0 victory over Belgium’s Standard Liege.
For Pulisic, it was his second goal in two games following his strike against PSV Eindhoven last weekend.