“What you see of Griezmann is like a caricature of himself. I see him sad, with his head down, running without much sense.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Uruguayan was not wrong, Griezmann looked empty and lacking personality on the pitch, he was simply not himself anymore.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the exciting forward got his fourth start since the league returned and played with the vitality and confidence of a talisman who found the net every weekend. It was almost as if he was telling Lasarte, \u2018\u2019Don\u2019t you worry boss, the Griezmann you know is back.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Manager Quique Setien had finally let his guard down and decided to give the former Sociedad forward the freedom he is used to, all while giving the squad a different shape.<\/p>\n
Griezmann was seen involved in combinations with Messi and Luis Suarez as Barca fans had dreamt since his signing, and he was absolutely less marginalized than usual.<\/p>\n
He was back indeed, his contagious energy and smile were all over the goal celebrations, his control of the game was on point and was acting naturally and lively for the first time in a while.<\/p>\n
Griezmann was almost on the end of Jordi Alba’s cross for the opener, the goal eventually attributed as a Pau Torres own-goal.<\/p>\n
Gerard Moreno equalised just over ten minutes later with a counter-attack that was finalised with a rebound from the in-form striker.<\/p>\n
Suarez then put his teammates on top for the second time at the 20th<\/sup> minute. A delightful curled shot from outside the box found the top left corner, while the \u2018keeper stood in awe of the Samuel Eto\u2019o-esque strike.<\/p>\nThe third goal came from a brilliant combination between Messi and Griezmann, the Argentinian played a back-heel pass to his partner, who sent a magical chip goalbound just before half-time, replicating the Barca captain’s goal against Real Betis last year.<\/p>\n
Griezmann was finally replaced by young Ansu Fati at the 72nd<\/sup> minute who went on to score the fourth of the night for Barcelona.<\/p>\nThe Frenchman completed the most amount of touches (56) in ten La Liga starts. He even exceeded some games where he had played the full 90 minutes.<\/p>\n
Moreover, his heatmap on Sunday night was more similar to his season\u2019s movements when he was an Atletico Madrid player than his overall for the current campaign.<\/p>\n
Heatmap vs Villarreal (Sofa Score)<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Atletico Madrid – 18\/19 Season heatmap (Sofa Score)<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Barcelona-19\/20 Season heatmap (Sofa Score)<\/p><\/div>\n
It is worth mentioning that the hosts were not the easiest side to face as well, the Yellow Submarines have won five of their last six games conceding only two goals.<\/p>\n
They possess La Liga’s third most creative and efficient players in Santi Cazorla with eight assists and Moreno with 15 goals, making him the highest-scoring Spaniard in the league.<\/p>\n
As for Barcelona, this contest will be of massive importance.<\/p>\n
In spite of the four points gap between them and Real Madrid, Setien will be more than satisfied with this win, and the style in which his men completed it.<\/p>\n
The visitors\u2019 gaffer might have also just removed another task off his plate with the obvious progression on Griezmann\u2019s production.<\/p>\n
The Frenchman looked rejuvenated on Sunday and will now be keen to reach the form that made him so coveted by Barca last summer.<\/p>\n
[columns]
\n[column size=”1\/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”10″ cats=”40″ heading=”France” heading_type=”timeline” \/][\/column]
\n[column size=”1\/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”10″ cats=”335″ heading=”La Liga” heading_type=”timeline” \/][\/column]
\n[\/columns]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barcelona defeated Villareal 4-1 on Sunday evening. Mickey Jreissati explores the impact Frenchman Antoine Griezmann had on the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":231883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,355,2],"tags":[354,638,356,1255],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}