By Toby Prince
Life in La Liga without injured Lionel Messi got off to a bad start for Luis Enrique’s Barcelona on Saturday, as the reigning champions lost 2-1 away to Sevilla.
Goals from Michael Krohn-Dehli and Vicente Iborra in the space of six second-half minutes at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan gave the Andalusian hosts a lead they did not relinquish.
Barca pulled one back from the penalty spot through Neymar with 16 minutes to go.
Despite laying siege to their opponents’ goal in the closing stages of the contest, the Catalan giants proved unable to force an equaliser.
It leaves Enrique with work to do in the weeks and months ahead as talisman Messi recovers from the knee injury he suffered early in Barca’s 2-1 win at home to Las Palmas in their previous league game.
Such a significant victory against the titleholders will do much to ease the pressure on Sevilla’s under fire coach, Unai Emery, following a poor start to the domestic season and their Champions League hammering at the hands of Juventus in midweek.
