Barcelona vs Olympiacos: 5 Talking Points as Barca are reduced to 10 men

Barcelona continued to add scalps to their unbeaten run this season with a 3-1 win over Olympiacos in their UEFA Champions League group D match on Wednesday night at the Camp Nou. Goals from Lionel Messi and Lucas Digne were enough to see the Catalan club grab all three points while Olympiacos' Dimitris Nikolaou scored at both ends of the pitch.

Ernesto Valverde's men looked comfortable in spite of going down to 10 men and the result sees the La Liga club at the top of the group - three points ahead of Juventus.

Here are the major talking points from the game.

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#1 Barcelona dominate proceedings but goals were hard to come by

Barcelona strggled to find a way through in the first 60 minutes

With the game at the Camp Nou, there was only one team that was going to dominate the game. Valverde has brought possession football back to Barcelona and they had 70% of possession throughout the game.

The first half saw Olympiacos rarely venture out of their own half. On the odd chance they did, they were quickly shut down and the ball dispatched back to the final third for Barcelona to create more chances.

The final numbers? Possession: 70-30. Shots: 25-3. Touches: 976-515. The only stat Olympiacos outperformed Barcelona were tackles - 19 to 12.

And yet, the home side failed to put away a number of chances in the first half. It was only an own goal that eventually put Barcelona in front when Nikolaou attempted to get in the way of a Deulofeu pass to Messi, only to see the ball come off his shin and beat his keeper.

Barcelona did not score 'their' first goal until the 61st minute.

#2 Olympiacos didn't park the bus, they were forced to

With no way through in the box, Barcelona resorted to crosses

With Barcelona making quick inroads into the Olympiacos' half, their manager Panagiotis Lemonis deployed them in a 4-5-1 formation in an attempt to thwart Barca's attacks.

Unfortunately, it did not work. Their positioning was off and it allowed Messi to play the role of destroyer in his new (old) false nine role. The Argentine forward managed to find space between the lines and this also allowed him to bring others into the game as he drew Olympiacos defenders out of their positions.

The 4-5-1 was not as compact as Lemonis would have liked and this also allowed Deulofeu to find a lot of space on the right.

Heat maps of Barcelona (L) and Olympiacos (R) show how much the home side dominated (via WhoScored)

As the defence sat deeper with the midfield line also dropping deep, it allowed Sergio Busquets to control the direction of attack by spraying passes from the middle while Paulinho had more freedom to make runs into the box.

The Brazilian almost go on the score sheet twice too, if not for the offside flag preventing him from celebrating what would have been his third goal in a Barcelona shirt while another header came off the woodwork.

#3 Did Gerard Pique deserve to get sent off?

Gerard Pique received a red card in the first half

In truth, Gerard Pique was the architect of his own sending off. It was a booking that could easily have been avoided but the Barcelona centre-back cannot complain following his first ever red card in the Champions League.

In a game where the home side were dominating, Pique panicked when Olympiacos had a promising attack building up. It was what they call in the game a 'professional foul' - taking one for the team as Pique held on to the player's shirt to prevent him from advancing up the field.

However, it was the second yellow card that was a bit unlucky. Sensing a goal, the centre-back had made his way into the box when Gerard Deulofeu took a shot on goal from the right.

Olympiacos goalkeeper Silvio Proto managed to get a hand to it and deflected it away from goal, only to see the ball make its way to Pique at the far post. But the ball bounced up and, although Pique reacted as any player would, trying to move his hand out of the way, the ball came off his wrist before nestling into the back of the net.

1 - Gerard Piqué has been sent off for the first time in the #UCL (92 appearances). Accident. pic.twitter.com/31ieQLJNl9

— OptaJose (@OptaJose) October 18, 2017

The referee consulted with his assitant and pulled out a yellow card for the Pique - his second, and he was off. Replays showed he barely had time to react but his celebration for the 'goal' certainly did not help his cause and it was probably enough for the referee to make up his mind and book him for a second time in 31 minutes.

#4 Conditions at the Camp Nou sees players struggle

Gerard Deulofeu slipped a couple of times on the slippery pitch

The weather in Barcelona wasn't exactly conducive to a great game of football. Constant rain that even saw cameramen struggling to keep their lenses dry made the pitch a bit slippery and the players struggled to get a grip.

The stands were largely empty as most people stayed away from the stadium. The majority of the seats at the Camp Nou do not have a roof over them and plenty of empty seats greeted the teams as they walked out.

While it wasn't exactly similar to a cold, wet night in Stoke, the slippery pitch saw players that rely on pace and quick turns struggle to make an impact.

Deulofeu constantly found space out on the right but was let down by the nature of the surface, preventing him from cutting in when he had the chance. Messi also struggled to accelerate and decelerate when he had the ball at his feet, allowing Olympiacos defenders to stop him in his tracks.

#5 Lionel Messi joins the 100 club but Barcelona need other goalscorers

Messi has now scored 100 European goals for Barcelona

There was a time when Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were neck-and-neck in the race for 100 Champions League goals. But the last couple of seasons saw Ronaldo pull away and go beyond the 100-mark as Real Madrid won back-to-back titles.

However, Messi has now become the second player to join the 100 club - not in the Champions League but European football (includes Super Cups). It also makes him the first player to score 100 European goals for a single club.

2-0. Lionel Messi scores his 100th goal in all European competitions. He is 2nd player to reach this mark, after Cristiano Ronaldo (113).

— Gracenote Live (@GracenoteLive) October 18, 2017

And what better way to reach the milestone than with a well-placed free-kick? Nikolaou, who had scored an own goal in the first half, horribly mistimed his tackle and brought Messi down outside the box - in Messi free-kick territory.

The 30-year-old stepped up and curled it over the wall and found the back of the net even though Proto got a hand to it. While Proto had a go at his wall for not leaping into the air to stop Messi's shot, one player actually did. Odjidja-Ofoe tried his best to head it clear but Messi managed to curl the ball over his head!

But this Messidependencia is something that will worry Valverde. Among this season's top goalscorers, Messi is first with 14 while Luis Suarez is third with only three goals so far.

Who's second? None other than Mr. Own Goal with five!