Achieves Best Scoring Average at Start of the Spanish Leaague - Messi's best (half) hour

Play less and score more. These simple words sum up Messi's superb start to the championship. In one and a half matches he has scored five goals making him the undisputed Pichichi (top scorer) after just three match days. What's more, with a scoring average to make your hair stand on end. Approximately every half hour the Argentine star makes his mark. As he always has done - but now even faster than ever.

It only took him twelve minutes to score his first goal in this league. In that first match against Levante, he scored his second goal just half an hour later. His absence on the second day in the clash against Málaga heralded a fine display at Mestalla where he scored three goals in just 40 minutes.

As a result, Leo Messi has notched up 5 goals in 160 minutes. Or to put it another way, he scores every 32 minutes. He has never had such a high average score at the start of the championship before. There has only been one season – two seasons ago - where Messi had five goals under his belt at this point in the proceedings. But by then he had played 209 minutes, meaning he scored every 42 minutes.

If we compare him with Cristiano Ronaldo, at this stage of the championship, Messi has come out on top on three occasions.

At a time when there is speculation about his physical condition, when his compatibility and coexistence on the pitch with Neymar is being questioned, Messi dispels any doubts in his own inimitable style: by clinching matches with his amazing, unerring eye for goal. This season he is even managing to do so in under half an hour.