Unlucky 13

Leo Messi has gone 362 minutes without scoring against Real Madrid. This has been a bitter pill to swallow for the Argentine star, for whom an average of almost a goal a game had made Iker Casillas one of his favourite victims.

At one point the diminutive forward's record stood at 13 goals in 15 'clásicos'. However, he has since become stuck on this most unlucky of totals. His last goal against Barça's arch-rivals came in last year's Super Cup, when his strike with two minutes to go prevented the tie from going to extra time and sealed victory for the 'Azulgranas'.

Since then it's been nothing doing. Leo played the full 90 minutes in all four league and cup meetings between the clubs last year but failed to etch his name on the scoresheet. Mourinho seems to have found a way to keep him in check.

Curiously, Coentrao played in all four of these matches. This is particularly telling when you consider that the Portuguese defender only appeared in half of the club's league outings last year. His presence seems to have helped stop Messi, even though he is given free rein to roam across Barça forward line.

In these four fixtures, the Argentine's stats were way below his normal level: he took far fewer shots than usual and lost the ball more frequently. The worst of the lot was the league encounter at the Camp Nou, in which Madrid came away with a 2-1 win to wrap up the league title and Messi failed to hit the target on a single occasion.

Leo is itching to break his duck and get the monkey off his back. Although Barcelona won two of the four matches in question, as a forward he remains keen as ever to hit the back of the net again.