Las Palmas Hold Leaders Barca With ‘Invisible Penalty’

While the draw maintains Barcelona’s unbeaten record in the league this season, their lead is now down to five points ahead of Sunday’s clash with nearest rivals Atletico at Camp Nou.

Struggling throughout the first half of the season, Griezmann has since the new year found his shooting boots again, putting four past Leganes on Wednesday night in a 4-0 win for his side. Aguirregaray appeared to be wrestled by Sergi Roberto and after Suarez inadvertently deflected it onto the woodwork, the ball came back and appeared to graze Digne’s arm.

The second period started in freakish fashion as the referee gave a controversial penalty against Barcelona, who were penalised for a supposed handball from Lucas Digne as the ball ricocheted back off the post, much to the dismay of most of the players on the pitch.

Coach Ernesto Valverde said he and his players still didn’t know what the call was.

The France global heads to Camp Nou – a ground he has never previously scored at – in fine form, thanks to seven goals in his last two La Liga outings over the past week. The Gran Canaria Stadium was one of the few venues where Messi was yet to score in La Liga.

Leganes are at home to Malaga with Malaga looking for their first win in 12 games, while Leganes have taken just two points from the last 18.

The visit to Las Palmas presents Barca with the task of overcoming a side who play an open brand of football under Paco Jemez.

Simeone’s side have a small squad for the remainder of the season after Yannick Carrasco and Nico Gaitan both moved to China and goalkeeper Miguel Angel Moya joined Real Sociedad this week.

It was well and truly postage stamp but ultimately insufficient to harvest three points for Blaugrana.

“As for where that leaves us, the team’s fine, it’s a reduced squad but a very competitive one”.

“We don’t know what the referee blew for during that play”, Valverde said in his post-match press conference in quotes published on AS.com.

Barcelona says Borges’ father told the club his son always dreamed of traveling to Spain to meet with Barcelona’s players.