As we know, stats don't always tell the story. They can be manipulated to make a certain team or player look good when in fact they really aren't.
But at the same time, they are also very useful and do help to back up your points in certain debates and arguments. And recent stats definitely show
Barcelona were not at their best in the game with Real Sociedad and their disappointing 1-1 draw means they have not won at La Real's Anoeta Stadium since 2007.
Advert
By their standards, Barca weren't really at the races and in this instance, certain statistics can definitely be used as sufficient evidence for how below par Luis Enrique's side were.
For starters, they had 31 less passes then Sociedad with 426. While that might not seem like a monumental difference, one does not expect Barca to lose out when it comes to passing. They also had less pass accuracy than their opponents, with Sociedad having a pass success of 83.6% compared to Barca's 76.5% - not the numbers you normally would associate from the mighty Barcelona.
Perhaps even worse, Barcelona created four chances against Sociedad, which is the fewest for them in a La Liga game since a match against Real Madrid in March 2013. Just two of those chances came from open play, which really highlights the uncharacteristic lack of invention on Barcelona's part.
Advert
They'll have to do a lot better in El Clasico against Real Madrid this weekend. Should Barca lose, they will be nine points behind Real and even so early in the season, that is a difficult number of points to make up.
Featured Image Credit:Topics: FC Barcelona, Real Sociedad