Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakitic says that he is surprised by the form that Lionel Messi has shown in the last two months.
After being heavily criticised for having become a goal provider rather than a goalscorer, Messi has been scoring in the bucket loads since the 1-0 defeat against Real Sociedad. The transfer speculation surrounding the 27-year-old has also disappeared due to this impeccable form, which does not appear to be slowing down any time soon. Messi has failed to score or assist a goal only once in the last 10 matches. He helped himself to a hat-trick and an assist in the 5-0 thrashing of Levante.
After the match, Rakitic says that he is amazed by the form shown by Messi. The Argentine has now scored 23 hat-tricks in the Spanish football. This sees him equal Cristiano Ronaldo in terms of the hat-trick in the league. There was also another record that fell during this victory and it was former Barcelona and Real Madrid superstar Luis Figo’s record of 105 assists in the league. Messi is single-handedly the best goal provider in the la Liga with 13 assists. Ronaldo comes second with 10 to his name. Messi seems to be urged upon by the second consecutive loss in the FIFA Ballon d’Or awards to his nemesis Ronaldo.
“It’s great that Messi is continuing to improve.He’s taken home another match ball today.We love having him in the team and doing everything we can to help him.It was a nice all-round game. We worked hard and that’s important. We need to carry on like this.There are 23-24 players in the squad and we all want to play. You don’t notice the changes, and we really enjoyed ourselves out there against Levante. It’ll be good to get some rest this week,” said Rakitic.