Barcelona’s Spice Boys too hot to handle

There was a moment in the first half here, midway through a period of almost dreamy Barcelona superiority, when Manchester City might have considered briefly stepping across the hoardings and taking a seat in the front row of the crowd.

Picking up the ball inside his own half, Lionel Messi first shouldered Gael Clichy out of the way, then put his head down and accelerated away, boots pounding the turf like a boxer hitting the speed-ball, drawing an involuntary gurgle of pleasure from the home crowd as one of City's renowned flyers was left running up the down escalator in his wake.

By that stage Barcelona were 2-0 up and making a rare kind of lime-shirted music in Manchester. This though was the final nail. We knew they could and would take the ball away. When they can shoulder you off the ball and then out-sprint your quickest man there really is nowhere left to hide.

For a while here the champions of England weren’t just outplayed they were presented with a team playing an entirely different kind of game altogether, as Barcelona did all the well-grooved little things as well as they possibly could, and Luis Suarez capped his return to England with two fine close-range goals to give substance to that sublime first-half performance.

Ah yes, Suarez. This always seemed likely to be a significant return for the Premier league’s reigning player of the year. This will have been a hugely satisfying match personally, and not just because of the goals.

At Barca Suarez’s goal return has been less prolific than during his days as Liverpool’s chief cutting edge. The idea that he only destroys the weaker teams - the Hammer of Norwich - has been trotted out again. But this is to ignore the fact he is playing a different role now, and with some craft.

This Barcelona has its weaknesses, as City were able to demonstrate during their own best period after half time, during which Sergio Aguero pulled one goal back and City might have equalised before Clichy's sending off for a second yellow card.

And yet for all the creaks here and there this current Barcelona has one outstanding point of strength that is a match for anything from the Pep Guardiola years. In Messi, Neymar and Suarez Luis Enrique has at his disposal surely the most powerful attack in world football, a hoard of creative goalscorers that is an object of intrigue for anyone who follows the sport.

There was a fascination just watching Barcelona’s trio emerge before kick off. Here they came, a three-man footballing supergroup. Suarez, Neymar and Messi: Scary Spice, Baby Spice and Jaw-droppingly Brilliant Spice. It is a good mix. Neymar offers beautiful movement and soft-touch finishing.

Suarez brings a more spontaneous kind of craft, and also a more concussive, physically challenging presence, while Messi remains the through-the-roof genius, an army of one who would fit with any team anywhere in any shape simply because he has the ability to redefine the game around him.

Here Luis Enrique continued with Suarez at the heart of his attacking three, providing that sharp-edged workaholic central presence around which Messi and Neymar rotate. There has always been a suspicion Suarez’s more physical, more off-the-cuff kind of presence might make the difference in the tighter moments in this competition. And here he was the perfect cutting edge in a first half that saw Barcelona kick off in their extreme hi-viz green and promptly keep the ball for the opening minute, putting together 20 or so passes as a kind of early clearing of the throat.

With 11 minutes gone there was a first glimpse of Neymar's inventive range of movement, a flick and shimmy taking him past Pablo Zabaleta inside the box like a man very tactfully evading a drunken late night pedestrian. The opening goal came four minutes later with Barcelona no more than dominant, a gear below the blur of elusive green of their best moments.

It was a goal from the Premier League-era Suarez, a player born to thrive when the game is broken. Messi’s cross brought a flicked header from Suarez, the ball bounced down off Kompany and before anybody could move Suarez swivelled and smacked it low into the corner. It felt like a decisive blow to the kidneys - all the more so for coming out of more or less nowhere, the most unBarca-ish of two-inch-punches.

And so for the next half hour Messi threatened to play City off the park down the tunnel and off down Ashton New Road all on his own. First there was a moment of collective jaw-drop as he cut inside, paused time briefly and picked out through the crowd an almost offensively perfect cross-field pass.

Seconds later Neymar produced a kind of circus-pass on the edge of City's area, hiding the ball in his feet, then flipping it through to Suarez, whose cheeky attempted nutmeg of Joe Hart was foiled by a smart save.

Suarez's second goal on 30 minutes was a work of miniature brilliance made by Messi's surge and jink across the face of the area and by a superbly timed run from Suarez back the other way to take the cross from Jordi Alba and slide the ball home.

After which, and to their credit a City team sent out with an unnecessary second striker - allowing Sergio Busquets the freedom to pick a pass every time - gathered its strength and began to find the weaknesses beyond that front trio. Barcelona can be got at. But you have to catch that front three first, and few will fancy their chances at that on this evidence. Guardian Service