Ousmane Dembele shone in Barcelona’s 4-0 victory over Athletic Club. Xavi’s team keep the gap behind league leaders Real Madrid to three points.
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Dembele ran the show after assisting three goals and scoring once at the Camp Nou. Robert Lewandowski, Ferran Torres and Sergi Roberto were all on the scoresheet.
Meanwhile, Ernesto Valverde’s return to Barcelona was a sour one, and although his team sit in 6th position in the table, they are without a win in the last four games.
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Rapid reaction
1. Barca thrash Athletic to stay on Madrid’s tails
Barcelona have found their goal-scoring touch again, but it will likely come too late to save their Champions League campaign. After scoring three goals in the first half of Thursday’s win over Villarreal, they repeated the feat against Athletic Bilbao at Camp Nou on Sunday. They then went one better by adding a fourth after the break.
Xavi Hernandez tinkered with his side again, opting for four midfielders and bringing Dembele back in, with Ansu Fati and Torres among the players to drop out. The result was devastating; not disrupting. Within 22 minutes, Barca had three goals, one each for Dembele, Roberto and Lewandowski, who now has 17 this season. Torres completed the scoring off the bench in the second half.
It is just one week since a defeat to Real Madrid led Xavi to lament the “bad run” Barca were on. They had only scored once in wins against Mallorca and Celta Vigo, taken one point from six against Inter Milan and then lost the Clasico at the Santiago Bernabeu. Things are looking rosier again now. They remain on Madrid’s tails at the top of LaLiga, just three points back, and look in good shape going into Wednesday’s game against Bayern Munich.
However, the bad news is they no longer depend on themselves in the Champions League. Even if they…
Source : espn
