FC Barcelona manage to overcome Deportivo Alaves and get a much-needed win at home. With this victory, La Blaugrana have secured three very crucial points in La Liga. Now, after quite some time, Barcelona are gradually closing the gap at the top of the table.
Ultimately, it took the combined brilliance of both Lamine Yamal and Pedri to drag Barça out of this game that was getting increasingly more worrying as time went on. Finally, Robert Lewandowski managed to be the player who ended up breaking the deadlock and winning the game.
Wojciech Szczesny: 7.5
Did not do much wrong and played alongside his high-line rather well today. Also had a sense of confidence and control about the balls that did manage to reach his hands or come his way near the end of the game.
Jules Kounde: 7.0
The Frenchman did well to help out Lamine Yamal as much as possible on the attack, and kept his defensive duties in mind as well. A solid performance from the fullback both going forward and staying back. However, his passing options were often quite limited by the opposition, who did not find too many hurdles in doing so either.
Ronald Araujo: 7.5
The Uruguayan defender had a solid first half, and did his best in terms of snuffing out any chances that Alaves tried to conjure. However, perhaps due to a tactical reason, he was replaced at half-time by Eric Garcia. Did manage to hold the offside trap quite well as well.
Pau Cubarsi: 8.0
A bit more passive than usual in terms of his passing, but was just as active in terms of his defending. Solid outing for the young Spaniard, who did not feel too threatened by the Alaves attackers. However, his participation in setting the offside traps were simply perfect.
Alejandro Balde: 7.0
Always eager to move forward, and he had a good few moments where his dribbling came in handy. However, Alaves were rather effective in terms of shutting down most of his attempts to create something from the left flank.
