Barcelona suffered a shock 3-1 defeat against Manchester City at the Etihad in what was their first their first Champions League defeat this season.
Turkish international Arda Turan recovered from injury to make the match day squad but did not start.
Our Barcelona player ratings are listed below:
Ter Stegen – 6
He did concede three goals and could probably have done better dealing with De Bruyne’s free-kick but had it not been for a few important saves the score could have been even worse.
Mascherano – 4
Lacked the pace and work-rate to deal with the rampaging City attack.
Umtitti – 3
Lucky not to have conceded a penalty early on when he brought down Sterling in the box. Struggled to read the game and cope with City’s passing.
Digne – 2.5
Sterling used his flank as his own personal highway giving the France international a nightmare down the wing.
Rakitic – 4
Didn’t offer Barca a lot in possession and was reluctant to get stuck in defensively resulting in Luis Enrique bringing him off for Arda Turan on the hour mark.
Andre Gomes – 5
Caught the City defence napping on a few occasions and was denied an equaliser by the crossbar.
Sergi Roberto – 5
Manned his flank better than Digne but did not bring a lot to the table in attacking positions.
Busquets – 4.5
Uncharacteristically poor in possession. No other player was dispossessed of the ball more times than Busquets – three times. The Spanish international struggled with City’s high press and failed to provide the centre-backs with protection.
Messi – 6.5
Scored the opener in a classic Barcelona counter-attacking move but struggled to cope with City basically swarming him whenever he had the ball afterwards. The Argentinian looked frustrated towards the end of the game.
Neymar – 6
Ran half the length of the pitch to setup Messi with the opener but drifted out of the game afterwards and failed to exert influence on the game.
Luis Suarez – 5
Quite game by the Uruguayan’s standard who didn’t have much joy against the City defence.
Subs:
Arda Turan – 6
Replaced Rakitic on 60 minutes but did not provide much of a spark coming off the bench. Turan worked hard, passed accurately – 80 percent – but failed to create a lot in the final third.
