La Liga 2017/18: Atletico Madrid 1-1 Barcelona; 5 talking points

#3. Barcelona benefit from the pace off the bench

Valverde's substitutions made the difference

It is fair to say that Valverde got his substitutions spot on tonight. His decision to bring in Deulofeu and Roberto on the right flank instilled some energy and pace into the team and these were visibly lacking in the first half.

This could work well for Barcelona in the future and it is a strategy that has paid dividends elsewhere, especially in the case of Jose Mourinho's Manchester United-- a team that uses pace off the bench to great advantage.

On top of that, Andre Gomes started exerting his influence on the game after the right flank was secured by the fresh legs of Roberto and Deulofeu.

It was Sergi Roberto's delicious ball that set up Luis Suarez for the equalizer.

Deulofeu caused a lot of problems down the right flank and put Atletico on the backfoot. His being a constant threat stopped Filipe Luis from venturing forward and as a result, Atletico Madrid found it more and more difficult to get higher up the pitch in the last 20 minutes or so.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

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Edited by Shambhu Ajith