Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman emphasised the importance of easing the scoring burden on Lionel Messi after his side hammered Real Sociedad 6-1 away from home in the La Liga on Sunday with four different goalscorers.

Messi, who celebrated becoming the club’s highest appearance maker of all time, did manage to net twice to take his tally to 23 league goals this season but fellow strikers Antoine Griezmann and Ousmane Dembele also got on the scoresheet while right back Sergino Dest scored a brace of his own.

“It’s always important for players other than Leo to score goals. That way it’s much harder to defend against us,” Koeman told reporters.

The Dutch coach has criticised his side after a number of games this season for not being clinical enough in front of goal but had no complaints after they scored six times with 10 attempts on target against Sociedad, who are fifth in La Liga.

“In a difficult game like this one it’s vital you are effective in the box and it’s also crucial to go in front to ensure your opponents leave you more space. Once we went ahead we really punished them,” he said.

“The most important thing today was the image we gave, it proved that we will go all out to try and win everything we can.”

Barca head into the international break trailing leaders Atletico Madrid by four points while they are two points ahead of Real Madrid. Atletico had to rely on a heroic late penalty save from goalkeeper Jan Oblak to earn a vital 1-0 victory at home to Alaves.

Mourinho happy

Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho praised his team’s attitude after a 2-0 victory over Aston Villa on Sunday but questioned why it had taken two dreadful performances to galvanise them into action.

Last Sunday’s feeble performance in a north-London Derby loss to Arsenal was followed by a lamentable 3-0 capitulation away to Dinamo Zagreb to crash out of the Europa League.

But goals by Carlos Vinicius and Harry Kane earned a win at Villa that put Tottenham up into sixth spot in the Premier League, just three points behind fourth-placed Chelsea.

“Okay I am really happy with (the response), but it is sad we need such a bad defeat to have this kind of reaction,” Mourinho said.

Mbappe’s 100

Kylian Mbappe became the youngest player to score 100 goals in Ligue 1 when his double powered Paris Saint-Germain to a 4-2 win at Olympique Lyonnais and to the top of the standings on Sunday.

The 22-year-old France striker netted either side of the interval with Angel Di Maria and Danilo Pereira also getting on the scoreboard to put PSG on 63 points from 30 games.

“When I scored the (team’s) fourth goal, the first thing I thought about was the fifth,” said Mbappe.

“It’s an important milestone in my career but I’m still very young and I can improve.”