Raphinha underlines Barcelona’s class to give Aston Villa a reality check

This was a chastening night for Aston Villa, and a familiar one for Unai Emery in this corner of town. On a processional night at the Camp Nou Barcelona produced a performance of unhurried, high-grade incision, easing to a 3-0 Champions League victory that never really seemed to tip into an actual close-quarter contest before it was already gone.

“There are a lot of things to learn today,” Emery said afterwards. “Overall we are competing fantastically in the Champions League; we have nine points. Today, we saw there is still more to do to get to this level. Even sometimes in this match we were close to achieving it. We had chances, but we must be ruthless in the final third. Three-nil maybe was more than we deserved.”

This Barcelona team will always give you a chance, a thrilling mix of high-spec possession football and large open spaces behind their own teasingly high line. But Villa never looked like getting their teeth into those tender spots, always held at arm’s length, fists whirling in the space between.

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Two goals here for Raphinha maintained his numerically superlative start to the season. But Pedri was the real star, producing 69 minutes of elite midfield guile, a footballer who at times like these seems to be tickling you very gently to sleep while someone else sticks the dagger in.

This was a significant game for its emotional weight, rather than any real sporting jeopardy at this early meandering stage in the Champions League’s expanded format. For the Villa fans crammed into their pen at the top of the stand it was a chance to register a note of progress for this high-wire, ever-evolving team just by taking part.

Currently the Camp Nou is in a state of mid-renovation chaos, packed with debris and random clutter, and with vast gushing holes in the raggedy corrugated roof. Think: Old Trafford, but deliberately like that. The new tiers at the top of the stands are already in place. The internal fixtures are being laid between hoardings and fences. Even on a drab and chilly November night you could already feel the outline of the coming mega-stadium.

But the atmosphere here was still a little thin at the start, the cagoule-clad home sections heavily speckled with empty seats. Hansi Flick put out a strong team here, with Lamine Yamal on the right and his hard-running straight-man Anthony Gordon on the opposite flank. Rodri and Pedri were the midfield pivot, a delicious-looking thing in outline, two physical extremes, the familiar wardrobe-like unit of high-spec midfield generalship, and next to him a more classically twirling, ball-funnelling Barça-issue sprite. Pedri is fun to watch even away from the ball, with that easy, fluid way of moving, just rolling along, never really seeming to stop or switch directions, like a paper bag being blown across the turf.

Paris Saint-Germain set a record as the quickest team to score four goals in the Champions League by powering into a 4-0 lead after 17 minutes against Villarreal on their way to a 6-0 win.

João Neves started the goal-blitz before Desiré Doué, Senny Mayulu and Fabián Ruiz quickly put the tie to bed. Ruiz struck his second to make it 5-0 soon after the interval and substitute David Boly completed the scoring as PSG extended their 100%  Champions League start and moved three points clear at the top of the table.

Since taking just two points from their first three Ligue 1 games this season, which included a 2-1 home defeat to Monaco, PSG have now won 10 successive games in all competitions.

Inter were equally convincing, beating Feyenoord 3-0 at De Kuip. Yann Bisseck curled in the opener from long range, Pio Esposito headed the second before ⁠half-time and Piotr Zielinski completed the scoring from ​distance after ​the restart.

Sporting Lisbon beat Shakhtar Donetsk 1-0, a day after parting ways with their head coach, Rui Borges.  Under the reserve coach, Tiago Fernandes, the Portuguese giants picked up their third win in the Champions League this season, with Issa Doumbia scoring the decisive goal in the game at Stamford Bridge.

Aleksey Batrakov scored two goals in quick succession to seal a 2-0 win for Galatasaray against Stuttgart. Batrakov opened the scoring in the 12th minute at Rams Park and struck again three minutes later. Austria's Lask won 4-0 against Slovan Bratislava and Bodø/Glimt drew 0-0 with Lille

Stadiums across Europe fell silent before kick-off in memory of the Tenerife player Jesús de Miguel, who died earlier on Tuesday after a collision on the pitch in the Spanish second division match against Andorra on Monday. Agencies

Emery picked a team to press and stifle the space. It was always likely to be the plan against these opponents, ideologically wed to their own version of the Cruyffian omni-ball possession game. But then, everyone has a plan until they get lulled into a state of early-onset mental fatigue chasing shirt numbers and empty spaces.

Villa sat deep and snapped into their challenges. There were a couple of long passes from John McGinn on the right to set Nicolas Jackson in beyond the Barcelona line. On the other side Lamine Yamal looked, as ever, like a different species of human every time he took the ball, just in the way he snaps and grooves inside, a player who walks on to every pitch carrying his own portable yard of space.

With seven minutes gone it was Lamine Yamal who opened the scoring, in a way that felt almost too easy and too natural, cutting in from the left, too quick in his movements, all alone in front of goal suddenly even in that crowded space, with time to clip a simple left-footed shot into the far corner.

The Camp Nou let out a devotional roar. Lamine Yamal ran through his brand-friendly celebration routine in front of the ultras behind the goal. And at that point you feared for Emery’s team on that open right side.

Villa did come surging back straight away, winning a succession of corners. Johan Manzambi shot wide after good work from Jackson. But with 12 minutes gone Ian Maatsen was booked for bringing down Lamine Yamal as he eased away by the touchline, a Chekhov’s shotgun-style scenario for any full-back given the nightmarish job of marking this miracle of feints and snaps and pond-skater glides.

Gordon had a shot well saved by Zion Suzuki after a disastrous attempt to play out from the back had been strangled by the Barcelona press. But the game wasn’t really changed by Barcelona going 1-0 up. When they play like this the test is as much patience, concentration and retaining the energy to break when chance arrives. It did finally on 33 minutes, Manzambi driving down the left before shooting too close to Joan García.

But half-time arrived with Barcelona looking a little too easy and unbloodied for their lead.

Rodri was withdrawn and replaced by 19-year-old Marc Bernal, another high-grade home-farmed Catalan central midfield product. Nothing much changed. Villa continued to chase shadows, and also press, mark and nibble at the ankles of shadows whenever they got the chance.

And with 52 minutes gone it was 2-0, the goal scored by Raphinha via a deflected shot, Villa seeming a little hypnotised by a sustained spell of possession and pressure. Pedri made the moment happen with a driving run through the centre followed by a nudged forward pass. It was a fascinating piece of midfield play. Pedri had spent the previous 90 seconds lurking behind João Cancelo, sitting in that space and watching the play, then accelerating on to the ball like a rugby union full-back waiting for the moment to enter the line.

Emery made a triple substitution on the hour mark but before long it was 3-0. This time it was Cancelo’s turn to produce a moment of sublime skill. First he skipped away form McGinn like a man teasing the family labrador. Then he produced an outrageously cinematic low cross with the outside of his right foot for Raphinha to twinkle in and finish neatly again. The goal was his 19th in 13 appearances this season for Barcelona.

Villa came close, clipping the post from a Barcelona head in the crush at a corner. Pedri came off to an adoring ovation: he is just a delight to watch when he has space to direct the flow and tempo of the game. Villa barely got close enough to shake his hand before he was gone.

The final minutes ticked down in front of a steadily emptying stadium. Villa are still well-placed in the first phase mega-table. Emery will crave another chance to get closer to this calibre of opponent before the campaign is out. But this was a demonstration of the gap, still, at the very top.