Mesi By Jason Pettigrove (@jasonpettigrove)

By Jason Pettigrove (@jasonpettigrove)
Where would Barcelona be without Lionel Messi’s goals?
Since the turn of the year, the Blaugrana’s record-breaking front man just cannot stop finding the net, and his penalty against Espanyol was his 22nd goal in all competitions since Jan. 1.
No one in the top five leagues in Europe has scored more in that time frame.
Throw nine assists into the mix, and we really begin to get a sense of exactly how important the player is for his club.
After the summer signing of Neymar and a successful goal-scoring start to his career in Catalonia, there was a general consensus that “Messi dependence” was actually over.
It was a view that held even more weight when Alexis Sanchez and Pedro Rodriguez continued contributing to the goals-for column.
Yet despite their best efforts, none have been as prolific or as decisive as their colleague— and he has missed over two months of the season.
Messi has scored in 12 out of his last 14 games and looks in ominous form every time he crosses that white line.
His recent hat-trick against Real Madrid, his second in a week, brought Barca right back into this season’s title race, and a team that were written off as dead and buried seven days prior were levitated to the highest echelons once again.
Football connoisseurs amongst you will also have noted that it’s not just Messi’s goals that have been doing the damage.
With assists and key passes aplenty, La Liga and Champions League opposition must be wary that Messi’s speed of thought and speed across the ground have returned. The pint-sized assassin is back.
And far from being subdued and having one eye on the World Cup, he continues to play at the very highest possible level, week-in and week-out.
It’s hard to comprehend that there is any room for improvement in his game, but Messi’s shots-to-goals ratio could be better…if we want to be really picky. Per Squawka, Messi tends to convert from one in every six shots, but that is a ways behind some of his contemporaries.
Coincidentally, it was the same sort of average from last season when he set what must be regarded as one of the most outrageous all-time records ever—a record run so preposterous that if you hadn’t borne witness to it, you’d be convinced it was the figment of someone’s very active imagination.
Scoring against every other team in the league consecutively is unlikely to happen again in our lifetime, if ever. It’s taken over 150 years of football on planet Earth for someone to achieve the feat, and it gives a very real indication of just how special a mark it is.
And just how special a talent Barcelona have in Lionel Messi.