For 75 minutes of their Champions League tie against Barcelona, Chelsea dealt with Lionel Messi extremely well.

The Blues barely gave the Argentinean a kick and it looked as though his barren spell against Chelsea was set to continue.

But one loose ball from Andreas Christensen was pounced upon by Andres Iniesta, who teed up Messi for an all-important away goal.

Ok, so the Premier League side are certainly up against it to progress to the last-eight of the competition, but they wouldn’t have seen anything from Barcelona that made them fear travelling to the Camp Nou.

But if they were watching Ernesto Valverde’s side against Girona on Saturday night, they would have seen plenty for them to fear.

Barca ran out 6-1 winners following a hat-trick from Luis Suarez, a brace from Lionel Messi and a screamer from Philippe Coutinho.

Gulp.

But it was the performance of Messi that would be giving Antonio Conte sleepless nights ahead of the second-leg on March 14.

The Mirror - amongst others - are suggesting it was one of Messi’s best performances of his career as he broke a new La Liga record in the process.

Having already broken the all-time highest scorer in the league’s history, Messi became the highest assist-maker against Girona.

He set up Suarez’s fifth-minute equaliser, meaning he now has 148 assists in Spain’s top-flight.

But that was just the start for Messi.

He put Barca ahead with a brilliant individual goal on the half-hour mark, before an incredibly clever under-the-wall free-kick a few minutes later to make it 3-1.

While he didn’t complete his hat-trick, his performance was literally a joy to watch.

If you missed it, luckily a YouTuber has uploaded an individual highlights package of his display - and it’s sensational.

WATCH: MESSI'S HIGHLIGHTS VS GIRONA

Take a look:

After the match, everyone was singing the praises of the five-time Ballon d’Or winner as he was named Man of the Match - despite Suarez’s hat-trick.

COUTINHO ON MESSI

And the other goalscorer on the night - Coutinho - seems to be still struggling to believe just how good he really is.

"Leo is amazing,” Coutinho said.

“He fooled everyone with his goal (free kick under the wall). It's incredible how good he is. Each game we understand each other better, with him, with Suarez, he's very important for us. Bit by bit I'm learning and I have a lot of work to do."