Barcelona vs Athletic Bilbao in a La Liga clash

Messi missed five games earlier this year with a knee injury, and Barcelona will be taking no chances with their star striker.

And when Sunday’s game began, it didn’t take long for the Argentina superstar to make his mark, with the forward tucking away a penalty after Athletic goalkeeper Gorka Moreno was sent off for fouling Luis Suarez inside four minutes.

“Against Athletic I had the chance to score three goals but the important thing is the victory”.

“From that incident in the first few minutes the game changed completely with us in front and them down to 10 men”.

“We don’t take risks with anyone, even less with Messi”.

“Messi is the best in the world and we want to help him do things. In the second-half we did that very well”.

Barca is back to within two points of leader Atletico Madrid, having played a game less.

Intricate play in and around the final third resulted in Suarez grabbing Barcas third shortly after the restart, before Neymar conjured up the assist of the season, bamboozling two Athletic defenders and cutting the ball back for Ivan Rakitic, who was left with a simple tap-in.

The European champions confirmed after the match that Alba has suffered a strain to his right hamstring and will be sidelined for 10 days.

Athletic denied Barca a clean sweep of six trophies in 2015 on their last trip to the Camp Nou as a 1-1 draw sealed a 5-1 aggregate win for the Basques in the Spanish Supercup in August.

Messi was substituted at half-time after picking up a similar muscle problem and will undergo scans on Monday.