Lionel Messi: Barcelona star revealed why he launched tirade on his own team-mates during Villarreal win

LIONEL MESSI reportedly launched a tirade of abuse on his own Barcelona team-mates during their 2-0 win over Villarreal yesterday.

Goals from Luis Suarez and Messi ensured Barcelona retained their five-point lead at the top of La Liga.

Messi now has 18 goals in just 23 matches this season and his strike against Villarreal was his 525th of his career for Barcelona.

It drew him level with Bayern Munich legend Gerd Muller as the top scorer of one club in Europe.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing for the Catalan club.

Following wins for Real Madrid and Valencia on Saturday and Atletico Madrid earlier on Sunday, the pressure was on Barcelona to deliver.

And with the game goalless at half-time, Messi stepped up to slam his team-mates to raise their levels

That’s according to Diario Gol, who claim the Argentina international was not happy that his side weren’t putting in enough effort to ensure the win.

Both Messi and Suarez have combined for 21 of Barcelona’s 38 goals so far in La Liga and the report goes on to say there is a growing concern that the club are over-reliant on the star duo to find the back of the net.

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Lionel Messi was reportedly furious with his Barcelona team-mates at half-time against Villareal

Part of the problem could be down to Ousmane Dembele’s injury early in the season, who was brought in as a replacement for Neymar.

The former Borussia Dortmund star took part in a training session before the match against Villarreal as he continues his recovery from his hamstring injury.