LaLiga 2019-20: 3 reasons Barcelona lost against Athletic Bilbao

Let's address the elephant in the room, Barcelona aren't the same without Lionel Messi. With the Argentine missing due to injury at the start of the season, the Catalan side were forced to start their campaign without him in the starting XI.

A team that started off with Luis Suarez, Antoine Griezmann, and Ousmane Dembele as the front three of a 4-3-3 would've expected to make at least a dent in this Athletic Bilbao side even without Messi. A 1-0 scoreline in favour of the hosts is not what most fans expected from the night, but here we stand with the unexpected becoming reality.

What's even more bizarre is that the single goal that Athletic Bilbao scored came from a bicycle kick pulled off by a 38-year-old striker in the 88th minute, having barely spent over a minute on the pitch.

On a night that so much went wrong for Barcelona, there were three major reasons for their failure that stood out.

Lack of team chemistry

Barcelona seemed genuinely chunky and immobile in build-up

The XI that started the game for Barcelona weren't their usual players. Griezmann and Frenkie de Jong were making their professional debuts for the club. The Dutch midfielder's partners in midfield were Carles Alena and Sergi Roberto, it was a combination gracing the La Liga for the first time, and it showed.

They're professionals who were given a brief by Ernesto Valverde and should've followed it as practised, but it didn't quite work out as planned. On a night when Sergio Busquets was benched to bring in de Jong, Rakitic came on only at half-time, and Suarez limped off with an injury in the first half, none of the factors played in Barca's favour.

The passes they made or tried to make from midfield just didn't seem to find their intended targets. Griezmann and Dembele were frozen out of the game for long periods due to Athletic's effective defending, and they managed to keep Alba and Semedo from impacting too much past the halfway line as well.

None of Barca's well-laid plans was panning out, and usually, when the chemistry isn't quite right, Barcelona rely on magic, but the magician wasn't on the pitch tonight.

Complete lack of wing play

Dembele cut an isolated figure for most of the game against Athletic Club

Barcelona had 11 shots on target in the game, only two of them were on target. Athletic made it very difficult for the visitors to channel balls through to their wide players for the most part in Antoine Griezmann and Ousmane Dembele initially, and Rafinha or Perez once they came on.

The Catalan side is not one that is renowned for lots of crossing from open play, but they usually have some width to open up the pitch. The sight of Jordi Alba bombing down the left and in days gone by Dani Alves on the right is quite familiar to Barcelona fans. But there was no width from the visitors in this game.

When Griezmann or Dembele were on the ball, they drifted inwards. Rafinha also tended to come in when starved of the ball just so he could get involved with play. Normally that would see Alba and Semedo run past them and keep some width in attack, but Athletic's pressing in wide areas kept them from having any impact at all.

Rafinha hit the bar once after his shot from long range was touched onto the post by Unai Simon in probably the closest attempt of the game. Suarez also hit the post from a defensive error from a position where he really should have scored, but apart from those two attempts, Barca never really tested Athletic.

No genuine defensive midfield

De Jong was under constant pressure from Raul Garcia

This is not strictly true about Barcelona all the time, although they do rely on the ability of their centre-backs to read the game more than most, they're usually fairly well equipped to win the ball in midfield.

Against Athletic, Barca seemed porous in defending any sort of attacks. For most of the first half, Inaki Williams himself had plenty of space to operate in between the midfield and backline. He managed to run in behind plenty of times as well and test Marc-Andre Ter Stegen making up many of the 5 shots on target that Athletic registered.

Raul Garcia's constant pressure on Frenkie de Jong also made it difficult for the Dutchman to settle. Though he did hold his own in terms of not giving away the ball and largely being press resistant, it did put a dent in his ability to start any coherent attack from midfield.

More crucially, neither in the 4-3-3 system, nor in the 4-3-2-1 were Barca able to keep defensively sound in midfield. It may be an anomaly in this game, but Valverde may want to keep a keen eye on it as they go into their next game.