Lionel Messi has warned his opponents that there is more to come as he and his Barcelona team prepare to tackle Athletic Bilbao on Sunday. The champions are unbeaten in their four away games to date in La Liga, but two wins and two draws have seen them slip behind Real Madrid.
The little Argentine blew away rumours that he was in crisis with successive hat tricks against Real Mallorca last weekend and against Viktoria Plzen in the Champions League in midweek – Messi is 6/1 to score another hat-trick on Sunday.
The striker now has 22 goals in 17 games this season and surpassed 200 on Wednesday to become Barca’s second all-time goal scorer. He now has an incredible 202 goals in just 286 appearances and is understandably 2/1 favourite to score first at San Mames.
Despite his latest accolade the 24-year-old has already switched his attentions to Bilbao, with Barca a point behind Real Madrid at the top of the La Liga – keen to improve on some unconvincing away form.
Indeed Pep Guardiola’s men could begin the game four points behind their great rivals, with Real tackling Osasuna earlier in the day (Match Betting –R Madrid 1/12, draw 9/1, Osasuna 20/1).
“The most important thing is to win the three points this weekend because it’s a very difficult stadium to win at,” said Messi. “They are a great team, they study their rivals in depth, and they aren’t afraid to take the game to you.
“I’m not aiming to break the record this year. I hope to do it someday seeing that I want to stay here for the rest of my career. I feel great physically, strong enough to play as many games as possible, like last year.”
Messi and his team-mates travel to the Basque country (Match Betting – Athletic 10/1, draw 9/2, Barcelona 1/4) to play an Athletic side, who have recovered from a poor start to the season.
Marcelo Bielsa’s men are unbeaten in nine games across all competitions and have risen to ninth in the La Liga standings.
Bielsa will hope that star striker Fernando Llorente will be fit enough to last the 90 minutes. The striker has been struggling with a knee injury in recent weeks but showed why he is so important for Los Leones with two goals in their last league game at San Mames against Atletico Madrid 10 days ago (Llorente 10/1 to score first).
Scoring will be a whole lot tougher on Sunday though as they become the latest club to try and beat Victor Valdes, who broke a club record in midweek by going 787 minutes without conceding a goal stretching back to mid-September. It is no surprise then that Barca are at 8/11 to keep yet another clean sheet.
The Catalan giants have also comfortably outscored their opponents this season, scoring 32 goals to Athletic’s 15, suggesting any goal-fest could be distinctly one sided – a 4-0 Barcelona victory is 11/1.
Don’t expect Bilbao to sit back and try and contain their illustrious opponents though, striker Oscar de Marcos insists his side will go out for the win.
“We have had a very good run recently,” the striker told Sport.”We know that to beat Barca is very difficult, but we will try to get the three points. We will not go for the draw, we will do our best and enjoy the game.”
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