Barcelona go into Saturday's El Clasico in pretty good form.

They will be missing French duo Samuel Umtiti and Ousmane Dembele, but go into the world's biggest club fixture unbeaten in La Liga and 11 points clear of Real Madrid.

On Sunday evening, the Blaugrana produced a display reminiscent of the glory days under Pep Guardiola, cutting through Deportivo with their tiki-taka style, winning 4-0 on the night.

Perhaps the only shock with the result was that Lionel Messi didn't find himself on the scoresheet, despite picking up assists for the first two goals, scored by Luis Suarez and Paulinho.

The Argentine superstar missed a penalty, hit the woodwork three times and missed two sitters throughout the course of the game, leaving him still level with Gerd Muller's record of 525 goals for one club.

It's quite a strange occurrence for him not to find the back of the net and at full-time, Messi did something which perhaps illustrated his frustration.

As he was heading back to the dressing room, Messi took his boots off on the pitch, hit them together in anger and then proceeded to throw them into the crowd.

You can watch the footage of the incident below.

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Very odd, right?

Clearly, the Golden Shoe winner did not want to risk using the same boots at the Bernabeu, a game in which he cannot afford to miss six massive chances. Amazingly, he's now hit the woodwork 14 times this season, the same number as goals he has in Spain's top-flight.

Despite his failings in front of goal for a change, Messi was at his masterful best vs Depor, with he and Andres Iniesta the catalysts for victory.

INIESTA'S RETURNING GENIUS THE KEY

Having the Spanish midfielder back is a huge boost for El Clasico, with Sergio Busquets set to return against Los Blancos after being removed from the staring XI to avoid picking up his fifth yellow card in the league.

The omens do look good for Ernesto Valverde's side, with key players returning to form just in time.

The fact that Suarez has now scored in his last three games is a perhaps the biggest positive of all after his shaky start to 2017/18.