Barcelona crisis: What's wrong with Messi, Neymar and Suarez?

Never mind Leicester's bout of the collywobbles against West Ham, the only team blowing up in Europe at the moment are Barcelona.

With one win and four defeats in their last six games, the Spanish giants are in danger of going down like the Titanic after a season that had promised the prospect of an historic second successive treble.

At the start of April, the Catalans were on a 39-game unbeaten run, nine points clear in La Liga and on course to become the first team to win the Champions League two years in a row.

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Now they have been dumped out of Europe by Atletico Madrid, the team who, following three successive league defeats, are now level on points in the league. Real Madrid lies one point behind.

After losing to Real Madrid and Real Sociedad, the latest setback came at the Camp Nou on Sunday as Valencia, who recently sacked Gary Neville as coach, triumphed. The last time the two sides met in February, Barcelona won 7-0. The only positive this time was that Lionel Messi broke a five-match scoring drought to register his 500th career goal, not that he will remember it fondly.

"Out of nowhere, Spain's top flight has become the most enthralling title race in Europe," says Sky Sports. "Barca are very much a team in disarray. Even with their attacking triumvirate of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar fit they looked very flat in attack against Valencia - highly unusual for them."

Gabriele Marcotti in The Times says that Barca are on their worst run since the 2007-8 season - before the reign of Pep Guardiola. The team have fallen off a cliff, he says, and "fatigue and burnout" are to blame.

Marcotti illustrates his point with some startling statistics:

[Bullet point] Before Valencia, Messi, Suarez and Neymar had scored three goals in the previous 30 days. "Contrast this with the three previous 30-day periods, when they notched 19, 24 and 16 respectively."

[Bullet point] In the past year, "Messi, Suarez and Neymar have played a cumulative 16,058 minutes of competitive football for club and country... That is 18 per cent more than Bayern Munich's front men, 42 per cent more than Manchester City's, 57 per cent more than Real Madrid's and a whopping 63 per cent more than those at Atletico."

[Bullet points] Between them, the three players have been substituted four times this season. All of them were on the pitch for the full 90 minutes against Valencia.

[Bullet point] Sunday's game was Barcelona's "53rd match of a draining season that included a trip to Japan in December to win the Club World Cup", notes the BBC. Messi, Neymar and Suarez have also travelled across the Atlantic to play international football in South America.

The fabled MSN are exhausted, concludes Ed Malyon in the Daily Mirror, and manager "Luis Enrique's commitment to running the trio into the ground could prove costly".

But the coach has little choice thanks to a lack of cover. "Fatigue and tiredness is a problem that affects every side but one that is exacerbated by a lack of squad depth," adds Malyon. Reserve forwards Munir El Haddadi and Sandro Ramirez have played 16 games between them in La Liga and Europe and scored just three goals.

Barcelona have five league games and the Copa del Rey final to look forward to - and could still win both titles. But a season that had people wondering if Enrique's side were better than Guardiola's has gone awry.

"It could still be a double for Barca, but even that would feel like a disappointment," says Malyon.