After the disappointment of exiting the Champions League at the quarter-final stage, it was back to placing full focus on La Liga.
Real Madrid’s narrow win over Alaves meant that the Catalans had to get the three points against Celta if they wanted to retain a nine-point lead over Los Blancos.
Seven consecutive league wins, and all 16 home games won this season, is the form that Barca took into the game, whilst Celta had lost four of their last five fixtures in all competitions.
With Barca unbeaten
in the last five head-to-heads against the Galicians, they had the chance to win five consecutive matches against them at Camp Nou for the first time since 1993.
Let’s take a look at three talking points from the game…
Barca win overshadowed by Yamal injury
It was a tough night for Lamine Yamal when all was said and done.
Almost scoring in the first 20 seconds, he was at the forefront of each Barca attack before his untimely substitution.
A penalty won thanks to a burst of pace, and scored with aplomb, was just one of plenty of good things to digest from his performance.
The bad element of his night came as soon as he signalled to be subbed off. When a player does that, you know that there’s a big problem afoot.
Barca now face an anxious wait to see how much time Yamal will miss and will be grateful that his goal ensured their nine-point lead was restored.
Injuries will test Barca’s strength in depth
With the losses of both Joao Cancelo and Lamine at what is a crucial stage of the season, any length of time spent out of the side is going to test just how much depth Barca genuinely has in their squad.
There will certainly be tougher tests than Celta to come, so retaining the nine-point gap ahead of Real Madrid was a necessity on the night.
Alejandro Balde and Roony Bardghji both came on against Celta and can now expect more game time in the coming weeks.
With the futures of both players currently in the spotlight, they now have the perfect chance to show Hansi Flick what they can do in the first team.
Flick will also have to cope with Eric Garcia next time out. The versatile star picked up his fifth booking of the season against Celta, meaning he’ll sit out their next game.
De Jong the key to releasing Pedri
It wasn’t the best performance of Pedri’s Barca career in truth, though neither was it terrible.
There were a few glimpses of the brilliance that we’ve come to expect, but he was caught in possession more often than he and Hansi Flick would like.
What was very noticeable indeed was how much freer he was in midfield once Frenkie de Jong came on for the closing stages.
It was a special night for De Jong as well, as he became the Dutch player with the most appearances in the history of FC Barcelona, beating the record previously held by Phillip Cocu.
The Dutchman’s industry and ability to draw players to him gave Pedri much more room to work in and he began to look like more of his old self as a result.
