Luis Enrique provoked by Messi substitution talk

Lionel Messi was substituted against Athletic Bilbao however Luis Enrique was not set up to talk about the purpose for his withdrawal.

Barcelona manager Luis Enrique declined to engage inquiries over why he substituted Lionel Messi amid Saturday's win over Athletic Bilbao.

The Argentina chief scored his side's second objective of their 3-0 win at Camp Nou with a crafty free-kick however was shockingly pulled back with 64 minutes played.

Messi - who had played each moment of Barca's matches in 2017 until that point - seemed, by all accounts, to be at first baffled to have been taken off, despite the fact that he was seen clowning with Luis Suarez, himself given a rest as an unused substitute, amid the end stages.

It is suspected that Luis Enrique was basically quick to give the 29-year-old additional rest before next Tuesday's Copa del Rey semi-last second leg against Atletico Madrid, yet when made a request to clarify his choice, the head mentor was a long way from pending.

"I will not comment," he told a news conference. "You always want the story but I don't want you to write this. I'm not going to give you this information."

Athletic began ostensibly the more grounded of the two groups before Paco Alcacer hit a blow with his first alliance objective for the champions following 18 minutes.

Luis Enrique was charmed to see the striker end his hold up to locate the net in LaLiga and felt the objective slaughtered off the early certainty appeared by the guests.

"I enjoyed it almost more than the goals that I scored," he said.