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By Andreas Vou (@AndreasVou89)

While losing against Real Madrid is never an easy pill to swallow for FC Barcelona, defeat in the recent Clásico hardly caused alarm bells to start ringing.

Still sitting six points clear at the top of the league, in the last eight of the Champions League and a Copa del Rey final to look forward too, it was merely seen as a minor blip in what had been, and looked set to be, an immaculate campaign for the Catalans.

Two weeks later however, a second straight league defeat to Real Sociedad, followed by the devastating Champions League elimination at the hands of Atlético Madrid, has sparked a mini-crisis which could have disastrous implications if fortunes are not quickly reversed.

Up until April, Luis Enrique’s side looked invincible, having gone on a 39-match unbeaten run and opening up a nine-point lead at the top of La Liga. That was until Real Madrid came to town with nothing to lose. A late Cristiano Ronaldo winner at the Camp Nou has seen Barça’s feathers ruffled and has been pinpointed as the catalyst to their downfall.

The change in psychology from feeling invincible to suddenly being beaten on their home patch, no less by their fiercest rivals who had hardly inspired in the big games this season, was a test of Barça’s resolve. The first chance to bounce back was against Atlético in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals and, albeit in controversial circumstances, the team showed fight to overturn a goal-deficit to win 2-1.

However, a visit to Anoeta, which traditionally poses problems for Barça, was made even tougher with the added weight on their shoulders from their previous league outing, and Sociedad capitalized with a fourth straight home win over the league leaders. Wednesday night’s second leg against Diego Simeone’s side concreted the notion that Barça are indeed in a genuine spot of bother.

To pin the recent slump solely down to the Clásico disappointment would be ignoring a major sign that had been brewing for some time. Praise of Barça’s incredible front three of Lionel Messi, Neyamar Luis Suarez has been justified. With 109 goals together to add to their 122 goals last season, we truly are witnessing one of the greatest strikeforces in the history of the sport.  Nevertheless, all great players both go through slumps as well as suffering from tiredness, especially in the modern game with so many matches per season for both club and country.

Suarez and Neymar have played the full 90 minutes of every game they have taken part this campaign, while Messi has only been taken off when injury has forced him too. The trio started and finished El Clásico even after each returning from South America on the back of two demanding World Cup qualifiers just two days ahead of the game. The fact that they are never as much as substituted can be down to player power, which has clearly arisen in the case of Neymar and Messi who publicly vented their frustration in the past about being taken off.

However, another big reason for this is that there is no player in reserve at Barça decent enough to either put pressure on one of three or to offer something different when the team needs a kick. Even Barça elimination in the past decade has been met with calls for a ‘plan B’, but rather than a tall target man to whom long balls can be lofted up to in the hope of a scrappy goal, the team has desperately missed the power of an impact sub.

The great Barça side under Frank Rijkaard had Henrik Larsson who was always there to lend a massive hand on the big occasion, typified by his two assists in the 2006 final in Paris. And, more recently, Pedro Rodriguez, whose sale last summer was passed off as good business. The Canarian was a scorer of some of Barça’s most important goals of the last decade, many of which came as a substitute.

Luis Enrique has placed his trust in young Munir El Haddadi in the enforced absence of one of the famous front three and has done well. But in the big games at the business at the end of the season, a real impact player is needed.

At stages of the season such as these, a deflated team is crying out for one or two game-changing players who are hungry to prove a point, and are capable of filling in for one of the senior stars to get a rest. In the current Barça squad, nobody fits that profile.