By the astronomically high standards of Lionel Messi, the victory over Real Sociedad was something of a quiet evening for the Barcelona star.

Perhaps there was a little bit of fatigue after his masterclass against Manchester United, but the mercurial forward failed to reach the heights we've expect from him this season.

It's always somewhat strange when Messi doesn't find his name on the scoresheet and supporters in the Nou Camp did a double-take when the Argentine actually missed a free-kick.

Don't get us wrong, he was still absolutely brilliant and played a pivotal role in Barcelona's winner, turning provider for Jordi Alba to cancel out Sociedad's leveller.

And that was the key lesson to learn from the performance, Messi took more of a backseat role and was curating the chances as opposed to taking them on himself.

Barcelona 2-1 Real Sociedad

There were glimpses of the 31-year-old toying with defenders, dribbling past opposition like they weren't even there and spraying passes from the deep.

Not only that, but his aforementioned assist produced something of an interesting statistic, because it marked the 162nd time he's turned provider in his La Liga career.

That's a pretty incredible number and especially when you put it into context by comparing it to the goal-scoring tallies of some renowned La Liga strikers.

Messi now has 162 league assists

After the win against Real Sociedad, bookmaker Bet365 tweeted: "Samuel Eto'o played in La Liga for 10 years in spells with Real Madrid, Espanyol, Mallorca and Barcelona.

"He's considered one of the great modern-day goal-scorers and was a world class player. He scored 162 La Liga goals. Lionel Messi has 162 La Liga *assists*."

Messi has now become so unstoppable that even the statistic which should be is secondary concern, is bettering the tallies amassed by truly great, out-and-out goal-scorers. 

Just to play around with the numbers even more, Messi has also produced more La Liga assists than Sergio Aguero, Fernando Torres, Neymar and Diego Costa have scored goals.

Pretty remarkable stuff and serves to underline just how incredible Messi is when it comes to passing and create the kind of opportunities that can't be defended.

Many fans are starting to call him the best passer in world football and the more you look into the date, the harder it is to disagree with them.

The truth of the matter is that Messi is producing numbers that blow almost everybody out of the water, barring fellow greats such as Cristiano Ronaldo.

However, we're not sure there's a more rounded GOAT (greatest of all-time) contender than the man scoring and providing for fun at Barcelona.

Is Messi the greatest player in history? Have your say in the comments section below.