5 things we learned from the win against Nàstic

A good win for Barça against Nàstic in the first preseason friendly of the campaign. Goals from Dembélé, Griezmann and Coutinho handed them victory and we look at some of the most attention grabbing details from the 90 minutes: 

Dembélé's finds the net after 342 days

Since scoring in October 2019 against Sevilla, the Frenchman had not found the back of the net. In his defence his last appearance as a Barça player came against Borussia Dortmund in November of last year. However, it took the striker just five minutes to put that right against Nàstic with a good finish from inside the box. 

Signings looking good 

Pedri played the opening 45 minutes just behind the striker but often dropping to the right and showed glimpses of his undoubted talent. Trincão also impressed in the second 45 minutes from the right wing. 

Coutinho scores on his return

Philippe Coutinho is back from his loan spell at Bayern and appears to be in excellent form. The Brazilian played the second half of the game in an attacking midfield position and scored from the spot before almost adding another with an excellent effort from outside the box. Aleñá also returned from a loan spell and on his return from Real Betis he also looked in good shape in his 45 minutes on the field in the first half. 

La Masia debuts

Aside from the debuts of Pedri and Trincão and those returning from loan like Aleñá and Coutinho, two players from La Masia made their debuts for the first team: Iñaki Peña and Konrad de la Fuente. Both played the entire second half of the game against Nàstic and neither looked out of place in the first team. Peña kept a clean sheet whilst Konrad was unlucky to have an excellent effort ruled out for a marginal offside decision. 

First look at the Koeman style 

The Barça coach used 22 different players with two separate XIs in each half as he had announced prior to the match. On the field Barça set up with a 4-2-3-1 formation with lots of movement between front players, the full backs pressing on and a high intensity game all over the field.