It is early days still to begin to judge Pep Guardiola's Barça; however, the statistics speak for themselves: after 11 league games Barça have made their best start ever to a league campaign - nine wins and a draw = 28 points which is one more than Bobby Robson's team won in the first eleven games of 1996/97 (eight wins and three draws).

The current team have now won nine league games on the trot. The team of 2005/06 hold the record for concecutive league victories having won 14 straight games between October 2005 and January 2006. Many of you may remember some of the fantastic football played at that time including the 0-3 win at the Bernabeu with Ronaldinho at his unbelievable best. That team went on to lift La Liga and the Champions League trophy so until Pep's...

Second half goals from Leo Messi and Seydou Keita gave Barça a hard-earned victory in Huelva tonight that moves us three points clear of Villarreal at the top of the table and five points clear of Real Madrid and Valencia. Let nobody be fooled: this was not an easy game, Recreativo defended well for most of the game and also threatened with some dangerous counter-attacks, in Sisi, Adrian Colunga and Camuñas they have a lot of talent and Barça had to put in a good performance, especially good in the second half, to come away with the three points.

For the first twenty minutes Barça had a lot of possession without getting close to...

Pep Guardiola has made no surprises to the list of 18 players for tomorrow night's game in Huelva against Recreativo (kick off 9pm local time). Pedro, Victor Sanchez and Jorquera have been left out while Iniesta, Abidal and Gabi Milito are still all recovering from their injuries. Barça are looking to extend the lead at the top of the table with the 9th successive league win.

Recreativo are struggling at the other end of the table in 17th place with only seven points.  They have only one league victory this season which was back on the first day of the season in August when they won 0-1 at Betis. However, possibly their best player, midfielder Javier...

The next vote is for who deserves this year's Ballon d'Or. The big...

The LFP have announced the kick off times for next weekend's games and Barça's home game with Getafe has been set for Sunday 23rd November with a kick off time of 7pm (local time). Whenever we play Getafe it brings back memories of the amazing goal scored by Leo Messi in April 2007.

Click here to watch the goal again.

A late goal from Leo Messi finally saw off a spirited Benidorm who really deserved to take a draw from tonight's game. It's difficult to know why Barça have suffered so much against the likes of Basle and Benidorm when they have beaten much bigger teams such as Atletico Madrid and Almeria so comprehensively. The team seems to work just as hard but perhaps there is a relaxing in the concentration levels that makes the difference. For the Benidorm players as well it is possibly the biggest game of their careers and they raised their game accordingly. 

Benidorm demonstrated after just seventy seconds that they did not see the tie as over sending in a dangerous cross from the right. And as the first half continued it was the team...

As is becoming customary Pep Guardiola will not announce the squad for tomorrow night's 2nd leg Copa del Rey match with Benidorm until the day of the match. However, he gave an indication of his intentions today when no players from Barça Atlètic were included in the first team training session. Guardiola refuses to allow his players to relax and today talked again of the problems of over-confidence and the dangers of falling into the bad habits of the last two seasons. He also said that nobody should treat tomorrow's game as a friendly.

Whatever the case the 0-1 lead from the first leg should never be put in danger against a team from the Second Division B. Guardiola will no doubt give...

I thought it would be impossible to improve on the last league home games, but Barça tonight annihilated Valladolid with yet another display of breathtaking attacking football. Four first half goals from an unstoppable Samuel Eto'o gave Barça another big half time lead, but today the second half did not drop in quality as it had against Atletico and Almeria, and goals from Eidur Gudjohnsen and Thierry Henry sealed Barça's biggest win yet under Pep Guardiola.

Valladolid had the first shot on target with a free kick in the second minute but Valdés saved easily. Gudjohnsen missed with a header and Messi had a couple of efforts before Barça took the lead in the 12th minute. Dani Alves found Eto'o with a superb pass from the right...

We are back to waiting until the day of the match for Pep Guardiola to announce the squad for the game. It should be announced within the next couple of hours after this morning's training session which has been set for 11.30. What is sure is there will be no Andres Iniesta, out for six to eight weeks, and no Eric Abidal who will be out now for probably at least another three weeks if he doesn't eventually need surgery on his knee.

Guardiola will probably choose between Thierry Henry and Alex Hleb to replace Iniesta on the left side of the attack, while at left back he will choose between Sylvinho and Carles Puyol. Seydou Keita has been declared fit again  and may be included in the squad, and Victor Valdés should make his 200th appearance for Barça in...

Barça's game next weekend in Huelva against Recreativo has been set for Sunday evening (November 16th) with a 9pm kick off time. Last season we only managed a 2-2 draw in the corresponding fixture. I was just looking back at this blog's report of the match and it is interesting to read the comments at the time. Last season's game was in April, just seven months ago, it shows how far we have come in a short time. Click here for the report and 100 comments on that game, it makes interesting reading. It is also worth checking the link to watch Samuel Eto'o's cracking 2nd goal.

Oh, and I believe I forgot to give the kick off time for the...