Three talking points from Alaves 1-0 Barcelona as Hansi Flick’s side wave goodbye to 100-point bid

The game allowed Flick to give one or two fringe players a run out, and Alvaro Cortes can be happy with his debut contribution on the night. Calm in possession, strong in the tackle and authoritative when necessary, he certainly didn’t disgrace himself alongside Pau Cubarsi. Whilst it’s far too early to determine whether he could seriously challenge the first-choice partnership of Cubarsi and Gerard Martin, Cortes has put himself in the picture for further consideration.

Notwithstanding that Alaves were fighting for their La Liga lives, no efforts on target from Barca speak volumes. From quite early in the game, it did appear that it was going to be one of those matches where the Blaugranes could’ve played all night and still not come close to scoring. Whether it was a backs-against-the-wall five-man defensive effort that was keeping Robert Lewandowski, Marcus Rashford or others out, or it was just an incredibly poor 90 minutes from the entire attack, the fact is that there haven’t been too many worse matches from an attacking point of view in Barca’s recent history. No shots on target in the game for Hansi Flick’s side summed up their lack of bite.