When the front line works

Last sunday’s victory over Atletico Madrid in La Liga put Barcelona just one point behind leaders Real Madrid and a small gap between them and Atleti in third.

The victory was due to an impressive attacking power the the front line formed by Luis Suarez, Messi and Neymar working as a team and with great effect. This is wat the team needs after a difficult week, but now they need to show this consistency during the rest of the season, specially Neymar.

During this season, the midfield has seen a lot of changes and Luis Enrique is still trying to find a good formation, he started with Xavi joined by Iniesta after his recovery, Rakitc has faced some criticism and Busquets is lacking form.

But for the most part, the front line has been the same since Suarez has been able to play after his suspension, and when Enrique has changed, it didn’t go well, loosing against Real Sociedad with Messi and Neymar starting on the bench.

This is the first time that Neymar has put a “Brazil” type of performance with Barcelona, with much of the play going through him; he attacked with confidence ambition and with good results. The defense was unable to cope and Josema Gimenez was lucky to stay on the pitch after a terrible foul on Neymar.

Messi was the playmaker and Neymar put the danger in the attacks with his footwork always right on the point.This was everything that we expected from the three, but for Neymar was a stand-out performance.

But this is not enough, Neymar started the season with a great scoring form, but he only had one goal since late November until last Sunday, and this is not the kind of display that he needs, he must show the capacity to deliver every week, against all kind of opponents.

If Neymar can duplicate what he did last Sunday during the rest of the season, then Barcelona will be much closer to the big prices, and probably be on the podium at the Ballon d’Or ceremonies were his team mate Messi has stood upon for the last few years.

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