Barca are not the formidable force of old

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho doesn’t get much wrong and while the validity of his claim this is a Barcelona side on the wane will most likely have to wait until later rounds of this season’s Champions League, the evidence at the Etihad Stadium was that the Portuguese may just have a point.

As ever, Mourinho laced his view with several large helpings of hyperbole; this is not the worst Barcelona team for “many, many years”. But when measured against the sides that virtually reinvented the game under Pep Guardiola, they are no longer the possession-hungry, pint-sized juggernaut that humiliated the great and the good of European football.

The counter-argument, of course, is that they didn’t have to be.