Panathinaikos 0 Barça 3

Two goals from Pedro Rodriguez and another from Leo Messi who continues his amazing run of goals in nine consecutive games, gave Barça a comfortable 0-3 win over Panathinaikos in Athens tonight to make sure of top spot in Champions League Group D with a game to spare. We can now turn our attention totally to our battle for La Liga starting with a massive clasico match with Real Madrid on Monday night. 

The pattern early on in tonight's game had us immediately in control of the ball but we were lacking the urgency to break through Panathinaikos's 4-5-1 formation, our opponents looked to attack us quickly when they did get the ball which usually led to us winning it back quickly though we saw a couple of early mix-ups between Piqué and Valdés which got the Greek crowd roaring on their team. Panathinaikos's greater hunger led them to having the first decent chance of the game after 20 minutes when Cisse's diagonal run left Piqué and Puyol looking to the linesman hopefully, Cisse got a clean run at goal but Valdés proved once again why many consider him the best keeper around in one-on-one situations.

Barça woke up a bit after this and we gave our first sign of danger in the 26th minute with a dipping shot from Adriano which was tipped over by the keeper, but within a minute Alves found a gap in the defence to send in Pedro who picked his spot perfectly shooting low just inside the far post. After this we went back to a period of possession with little urgency as we just looked to control things, but as Panathinaikos failed to create any danger we decided to finish the half with a flurry of chances, with two crazy runs from Messi and a couple of saves to deny Pedro and Villa.

The influence of the advanced attacking positions of both our full backs had been important in the first half and Adriano on the left was giving us plenty of attacking options to match Alves's typical effort on the right side. In the 52nd minute Adriano forced another excellent save with a right footed drive, and then it was Adriano in the 63rd minute who set up Messi for our second goal. However, the goal was noteworthy for the stylish Barça build up with quick passes from Messi to Alves to Xavi so that when Xavi laid it on quickly he found Iniesta in space, everybody expected Iniesta to shoot but he held the ball for a moment allowing Adriano to go outside him and recieve the pass and then Adriano one touch pum to Messi one touch pam and goal. A beautiful flowing football machine. Adriano had another go with his left foot but the keeper denied him again but soon after the third game after another classy combination. This time Iniesta played the ball inside to Alves and continued his run into the area to receive Alves's excellent pass forward, Iniesta laid it back to Pedro who fired home for his second of the night.

There was not much to say about the rest of the game, Abidal who had come on for Pique gave one poor pass which led to a Panathinaikos attack but it was Abidal who got back to clear the danger from the penalty area. And there was the idiot fan who ran on to offer rather comically an aggresive middle finger to Leo Messi before being bustled off by a team of about ten security guards. Pedro had a late chance to complete a hat-trick but his shot went straight at the keeper.

It couldn't really be a better build up for next Monday's big game. Pedro is nicely finding his form just at the right moment, Messi cannot stop scoring while I have to say I strongly fancy a goal from David Villa against Madrid. It will be interesting to see if Javier Mascherano will continue against Madrid though it is a tough choice at the moment him and Busquets. If I have a slight worry it is over Piqué who has been a touch inconsistant recently, he picked up a second yellow card and is at risk now of suspension in the Champions League, he will need to be at his best on Monday to cover the space left behind Alves's forward runs. More on that before Monday, and apologies for anyone looking for the preview that I didn't get to do for tonight's match. Sorry, I had no time.  

Barça: Valdés 7.5; Alves 7.5, Piqué 6 (Abidal m72, 6), Puyol 6.5, Adriano 8 (Maxwell m76, 6.5); Xavi 6.5 (Keita m71, 6.5), Mascherano 7, Iniesta 7.5; Pedro 8, Messi 7.5, Villa 6.

Goals: m27 Pedro 0-1, m63 Messi 0-2, m69 Pedro 0-3.

Barça yellow card: m31 Piqué