Football eh? Barcelona produce one of their best performances of the La Liga season but only manage to scrape a draw against Villarreal at the death thanks to one of the finest free-kicks Lionel Messi has ever scored.

The newly renamed Estadio de la Ceremica was packed to the rafters and the crowd included La Liga chief Javier Tebas, who would’ve left the ground no doubt delighted at the result.

A confirmed Madridista, Tebas was on the end of another Gerard Pique diatribe at full-time, something which is likely to land the defender in further hot water after his recent comments about the standard of officiating in the division.

The Catalans could well do without a ban for one of their best performers in the campaign but the truth is that after dropping another two points, the league title may well now be beyond them, however much the party line gets trotted out about keeping going until it’s mathematically impossible.

For Barca to leapfrog Real Madrid at the summit, it would require the leaders to lose three games minimum in the space of the next 21, and the Blaugrana to take advantage of any slip ups. It’s possible of course, but unlikely, because Zinedine Zidane’s men are 39 games unbeaten (and counting) for a reason.

It’s hard to be critical of Luis Enrique’s side after the manner of their performance against the Yellow Submarine — a team with the best defensive record in the league. Barca narrowly avoided defeat in the league for the first time since the beginning of October.

However, that defeat — against Celta Vigo — is also the last time that Neymar scored in La Liga. The Brazilian has by and large played well but his goalscoring has been virtually non-existent. Luis Suarez has been off the boil by his own lofty standards.

Compare those players with Real Madrid’s, and Zidane’s charges are hitting all of the right notes week in and week out.

Wednesday night’s last 16 Copa del Rey second leg tie versus Athletic Bilbao takes on heightened importance. The natives at Camp Nou will certainly get restless if the current 2-1 deficit is not overturned.

Perhaps it’s Barcelona’s steadfast refusal to play any other way than that which has been taught religiously at La Masia that is becoming a millstone around their necks.

In plenty of games in 2016/17 we’ve seen just how hard they’ve found it to break teams down, even in those that they’ve ended up winning. The 1-0 victory over Granada is a prime example. The Andalusians were battered 5-0 by Real this past weekend and 7-1 by Atletico Madrid earlier in the campaign but the Catalans barely scraped home against them.

For Granada, also read Alaves and Malaga — games that need to be won if Barca still harbour genuine aspirations of retaining their title.

There’s still over half of the season left so the Blaugrana can’t be ruled out of course, but with so many teams now working out how to restrict their capabilities, only a fool would predict that Javier Tebas will be presenting the trophy at the Camp Nou come May.