MESSI gets to 31 goals in Liga, keeps Barça atop

Two matches after they got knocked out of the Champions League by Inter, two wins, eight goals scored and four by MESSI.

That's hardly a sign of a team that's devastated or a system that all of a sudden doesn't work anymore.

But speaking strictly about what interests all of us, Lionel MESSI has ended that run of 4 or 5 games without scoring and bagged a brace in each of the last two and crucial matches for his club in La Liga. A 4-1 away win over Villarreal and a 4-1 home victory over Tenerife (with an Argentine, Román MARTINEZ, scoring the only goal for the team from the Canary Islands).

MESSI, in both matches, scored the first and the last of Barcelona's goals. He has reached an impressive 31 goals in La Liga. What's more impressive? He didn't play all of the 36 matches. He started in 28 of them. So he scored more goals than the number of matches he started.

He came on as a sub in another 5 matches for a total of 33 appearances.

According to Marca's stats page, MESSI also had 9 assists.

The detail of his goals scored is:

21 goals with his left foot.
7 with his right.
3 with headers.

With one more match played, MESSI has scored 4 more goals than the entire team of Espanyol!

Unfortunately for HIGUAIN, he will now have to score 6 goals in the next three matches (Real Madrid have a game in hand against Mallorca on Wednesday) and pray for MESSI not to score anymore to share the Pichichi trophy (given to the top-scorer in La Liga).

It looks like it's all said and done for La Pulga.