Barcelona vs. Cordoba: Winners and Losers from La Liga Game

Barcelona rounded off their 2014 with a 5-0 home win over Cordoba in La Liga, with Luis Suarez finally netting his first league goal for the Catalan side in the process.

It took less than 80 seconds for Pedro to open the scoring, with a below-par Barca doubling their lead after the break through Suarez. Gerard Pique and a late Lionel Messi brace put a flattering look on the scoreline in the final 10 minutes.

Here are all our winners and losers from the match.

Barcelona's best attacker on the day by a distance, Pedro has really hit form again for Barcelona in the past few weeks.

Marginalised after the return of Luis Suarez and through his own ineffectual form, the Spaniard has now scored six in his last six games, including a hat-trick in midweek in the Copa del Rey.

Luis Enrique left Neymar on the bench throughout the 90 minutes against Cordoba, with Pedro shining from the left side with his off-the-ball running, work rate and quality in link-up play around the edge of the box.

Luis Enrique's Barcelona started the season with a rock solid defence, with wins and clean sheets coming with regularity. They won and kept a clean sheet against Cordoba, too—but the difference between this performance and those at the beginning of the campaign was startling.

Gone is the powerful, aggressive defensive combination of Jeremy Mathieu and Javier Mascherano, with rotation and indecision meaning Gerard Pique has gone from watching from the stands to the most regular starter in a matter of two months.

Sergio Busquets' own rocky form also gives the Barcelona defence a worryingly thin look at times, but it's bemusing that big-money defensive buy Mathieu, so impressive earlier on, has been rotated or left out entirely of late. What he's done wrong one can only imagine, but Barcelona look far better with him in the team regularly.

At left-back, linking well with Pedro but showing great form at both ends of the pitch, was Jordi Alba.

He overlapped frequently, showing all his best assets with pace and stamina allied to technique and inventiveness, to trouble Cordoba's right flank and create several scoring opportunities.

Alba almost scored a great solo goal himself and ended up providing the cross for Lionel Messi's late second goal. A terrific display from the left-back.

On-loan Valencia attacker Fede Cartabia has been one of Cordoba's best players this season.

Tricky, direct and with good pace, he plays just off the frontman and leads counter-attacks whenever possible—though he had to do that from very deep against Barcelona, of course.

However, his decision-making and end product was well off-key on the day, indeed verging past poor and into wilfully greedy on too many occasions.

A better attacking side than Cordoba would have punished Barcelona's sloppy play in the first hour or so, but Cartabia was wasteful in the penalty box and left frontman Nabil Ghilas frustrated with his constant shooting from tight angles with the striker clear in the area and waiting.

Luis Suarez took his time, but at the eighth time of asking the Uruguayan found the back of the net in league play for Barcelona.

Suarez had a good all-round game, working the Cordoba back line with his runs from right-to-centre and trying to link well with Messi and Martin Montoya, but often didn't get the right pass that his runs off the ball deserved. He certainly took his goal well, though, with a fine piece of control and some good composure to make the scoreline 2-0 and put his side in control.

He'll be a little frustrated that it comes just as Barcelona pack up for winter, but it bodes well for the second half of the season.

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