Barcelona 4-0 Man City: Messi’s hat-trick ruins Guardiola’s Camp Nou comeback

Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick and Neymar completed the scoring for Barcelona tonight as Luis Enrique’s men humiliate Pep Guardiola on his return home.

One-sided affair was pretty much caused by Claudio Bravo’s second-half red card which changed the game entirely. Here is our full match report:

Form Guide La Liga champions Barcelona headed into the international break on the back of the overwhelming 4-3 defeat at Celta Vigo which was a timely warning for Luis Enrique’s men.

The Catalans returned from the break with a bang as they recorded a compelling 4-0 victory over Deportivo La Coruna as a warm-up for Manchester City. Seven wins in last ten matches across all competitions is a decent tally for Barcelona, who welcomed their Premier League rivals top of the Group C in the Champions League.

Manchester City’s perfect record of ten consecutive triumph across competitions was ended by Celtic with the 3-3 Champions League draw and the Citizens have been unable to get back to winning ways since.

The 2-0 defeat at Tottenham followed prior to the international break, while Pep Guardiola’s mentor Ronald Koeman held his apprentice for a 1-1 draw against Everton last time out. The Citizens are on a downhill run and the things got increasingly worrying with their Wednesday’s slump at Camp Nou. First Half

Camp Nou crowd witnessed somewhat uneventful first 45 minutes with both Barcelona and Manchester City lacking the edge in the final third of the final, Barcelona in particular.

We did not wait too long for the deadlock to be broken however, as Lionel Messi opened the scoring after 17 minutes. The Argentine wizard pounced on a loose ball inside the box with Manchester City defenders standing like statues to allow Messi to run freely through the box and around Claudio Bravo, who was easily beaten by his former teammate.

Manchester City came to life after the goal, causing a couple of problems for Barcelona.

Citizens had their best chance after 38 minutes of play when Ilkay Gundogan swirled around the defenders and attempted to beat the keeper with a close-range shot, but Marc-Andre ter Stegen pulled a great save to keep his net still.

Citizens wasted another good chance in the dying moments of the first half as John Stones produced a quality header which went just wide of the right post.

A new look for 2016, this is the Lauren Holiday number jersey will be wearing as they compete for the trophy this summer. Ali Krieger, Carli Lloyd, Shannon Boxx, Heather O'Reilly and Amy Rodriguez. ali krieger jerseys It was Luis Suarez who closed the first half however whose inside the box low drive towards the middle of the goal was successfully stopped by Claudio Bravo.