Revista de La Liga: Ivan Rakitic integral to record-breaking Barcelona's early-season success

Ivan Rakitic’s dominant defensive displays and goal-scoring exploits are playing a pivotal role in Barcelona’s resurgence to the summit of La Liga, Graham Hunter told Revista de La Liga.

Luis Enrique’s Barcelona have started the season with five consecutive victories and are yet to concede a single goal in the league; a feat which has never been achieved in the club’s 114 year history.

The Revista panel dissected Barca’s 5-0 victory over Levante with Hunter linking the Catalans' early-season revival to the acquisition of the Croatian lynchpin from Sevilla this summer.

Fulcrum

“Everybody that chooses to watch Spanish football on Sky understands that Barcelona's form is because of players like Rakitic, his technical quality is fantastic and now he’s matching it with an incredible work ethic," Hunter said.

“He’s also extremely intelligent and my argument would be that that’s had a big effect on Busquets and that we are seeing a Busquets who is reminiscent of the very best ‘wars’ under Pep Guardiola.

“As Guillem pointed out, Busquets’ positional play was systematic for 18 months. He knew that if Xavi was playing beside him, because of age and injury, he would have to carry Xavi a little bit in terms of physical work.

“Rakitic is doing the work there that Busquets had to do for Xavi because he is very organised defensively. What I think it’s allowing is Busquets to make very, very killer passes.

“The big killer pass forward for the break that Messi made for the first goal against Athletic Bilbao, and the killer pass to Messi in the game against Apoel Nicosia. I would say to you that Rakitic is fulcrum of the team right now.”

Spanish football expert Guillem Balague highlighted a theme in the Spanish press which claims a ‘black cloud’ is hanging over the Nou Camp as the team attempts banish the disappointment of last season whilst adapting to the methods of new boss Enrique.

Balague believes that although Barca have stuttered at times against sides counteracting their footballing system, the Catalans now have the ability to change the way they play and this has ultimately led to their successful start to both domestic and European campaigns.

“The worry is the first half an hour because the distribution of the ball goes slow and there is no positional game with the same systems that they had under Guardiola,” he said.

“This means that at the end they break teams with real quality, attitude to get the ball back or a little bit of long ball, there were a couple of instances against Levante there with Neymar.

“It’s not a problem, it’s still early days. I mentioned the ‘black cloud’ to one of the Barcelona players and they said that they were not perfect yet - there’s still a lot of work to do - but they didn’t buy into the black cloud idea.”

Happy

Balague also suggested that Barcelona are benefiting from a Lionel Messi who is thoroughly enjoying his football at the club, with the Argentina international appearing to have altered and adapted his game in the new-look Catalan outfit.

“I go back to the conversation they had before the World Cup when Luis Enrique said to Messi 'we will do whatever you need for you to go back to your best'.

“He has gone to his best in a kind of different way from what we’ve seen in previous years. It was only a year-and-a-half ago that he scored 91 goals and he was a goalscoring machine, now he’s as happy giving assists.

“Out of the 12 goals Barcelona have scored this season he’s been involved in nine of them, six are assists and three are goals. The three goals of Neymar are from three assists by Messi.

“The three goals that Messi has scored are from four shots on target, so he’s not as prolific as he used to be and he has dropped a little bit deeper. He doesn’t feel that he needs to do those sprints as often as he did before and he’s enjoying doing that.”