Barcelona produced their best performance of the season in Sunday night’s 4-1 win over Villarreal as Quique Setien finally got his team to click.
Setien was appointed at the Camp Nou in January and despite some flashes of brilliant football, they had not sustained it over the course of 90 minutes until their impressive win over the Yellow Submarine.
As outlined by the front page of Tuesday’s edition of El Mundo Deportivo, that is largely due to Setien shifting his formation to a 4-3-1-2 style to get the best out of his three star attacking players.
Lionel Messi moved into the playmaker role between the midfield trio and two strikers – Luis Suarez and Antoine Griezmann, who both produced stellar performances.
It is said that the system is designed not just for a more dangerous front three but to allow the two full-backs to bomb forward and offer more width – rather than the previous 4-3-3 style which left a static attacking style.
The problem for the Blaugrana is that such a shift may have come too late, with the club trailing Real Madrid by four points in La Liga.
