Barcelona 2-0 Athletic Bilbao: 5 Talking Points

Modified Mar 18, 2018 19:25 GMT

Barcelona eased past Athletic Bilbao

#3 No Busquets, no Suarez; no problem

Paco delivers!

Athletic Bilbao will have looked at this fixture and felt encouraged by the fact that they will not have to deal with the threat of Luis Suarez up front. Add to that the fact that Ernesto Valverde's midfield general Sergio Busquets was going to miss out due to injury.

Ironically though, it is perhaps their replacements that made the difference on the day at the Camp Nou. Ivan Rakitic shifted positions and played at the heart of midfield and put in a shift and then some to calm any nerves that may have popped up owing to Busquets' absence.

He absolutely relished the chance to play anchorman and helped out in defence just as well as he did in attack. The Croat was often found sweeping deep and winning the ball back and thereby nullifying several Athletic Bilbao attacks before they could come to anything.

Paco Alcacer delivered on the one night he was asked to and though it's a bit frustrating for him at Barcelona, you get the feeling that Alcacer's time is set to become better.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

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Edited by Zeeshan Ali