Two shots in the first four minutes and two sublime assists - one for Sanchez and the other for Lautaro with a sublime flick - four chances created and a classy performance. According to Opta data, Nicolò Barella is the MVP of matchday 17 of Serie A. The Nerazzurri talent displayed all of his quality in the match against Cagliari, making the most out of every ball he received and confirming once again how he is a fundamental component of the Nerazzurri midfield.

The 24-year-old midfielder had 131 touches in 72 minutes (at least 19 more than anyone else in the match) and completed 108 passes (again, the most by anyone in the match, ahead of his teammate Brozovic). Barella was in fine form against his former club, and his assists at San Siro put him at the top of the list of players with the most assists in Serie A this year (seven). Box-to-box for the full 90 minutes and playing with the awareness of a veteran.

In Sunday night's 4-0 win over Cagliari, Nicolò Barella dished out his sixth and seventh assists of the season in Serie A; to get a sense of the scale of the figure, one need only look at the names of those who at this point in the season have the same number of winning passes to their name in the Big-5 leagues: Pogba, Benzema, Alexander-Arnold - to name but a few.

He was instrumental in attack against the rossoblù, but also clinical in terms of interceptions (only Bastoni surpassed him) and in defence (no one made more tackles in the match).  

 

His stats from the match against Cagliari

Minutes played: 72

Total shots: 4

Assists: 2

Chances created: 4

Pass success rate: 94.7%