The Official Barcaforum.com MoM-thread award
La Liga, Deportivo, away (5-4)
1. Messi (49,5%) 3+1+post from fk, it was practically Messi against Deportivo, referee and Barca's defense. And Messi won. ~ jiopi
2. Fabregas (34,5%) In the 60 minutes he played he displayed brilliance again. Creating 3 goals and staying up top form. Great performance by Cesc! ~ CF4 1899
3. Xavi (5,0%) THE BOSS....even from the bench ~ kostasgtc
He may not have been able to celebrate his fatherhood this weekend, but surely getting top spot for the third match in a row in The Official Barcaforum.com MoM-thread award more than makes up for that! A hattrick in an absolutely crazy match was enough for the diminutive argentine to secure nearly 50% of the votes and his 6th top spot out of 12 possible, where he's also featured twice in second spot and once in third. Absolutely incredible.
Well behind Messi, with 15% less votes, we find the in-form Cesc Fabregas, who has now featured 3 times in the top 3 in his last 4 outings. Things sure are looking mighty fine for the former canterano who bagged a hattrick of assists in just 60 mintues on the night.
I don't think we've ever had this much competition for third place, as we saw the likes of Alba, Montoya, Pedro and Xavi all fighting fiercely for the honors. It should come as no surprise to followers of this thread, though, that Xavi Hernandez beats the others to the finishing line, and snatches yet another podium placement, albeit with a measly 5% of the votes. Amazingly enough this was Xavis 6th bronze medal in the rankings, where he also has two gold medals, but is yet to grab a silver medal. Mr. Consistency.
The story of this weeks rankings is diversity. Not amongst the actual top 3, but for the rest of the players who got minutes under the belt at the Riazor. This was most likely a matter of Messi and Fab being so much better than the rest, that we had a hard time deciding who should be third best. 5 players didn't get points even though they played, and it will probably be a surprise to many that Iniesta, yet again, was amongst those. Surely his injury has been a deciding factor, but he's still featured in 7 games this season, and only managed to get votes in 2 of these. Noone likes to complain about the Don but perhaps we could expect just a tad more from our brilliant number 8? If the feisty scots keep the bruising, kicking and shoving on a low, surely this tuesdays ChL feature on Camp Nou against Celtic would be the perfect venue for Iniesta to step up his game and start pushing the likes of Messi, Fab and Xavi for their monopoly in the top 3.
A tiny shoutout goes to Tello, who despite scoring a great goal, was only deemed worthy of 2 sad points from the ever demanding Barcaforum posters.