The France defender impressed in his first season at Camp Nou, but he has been less convincing this term and it was his own goal that gave Villarreal the equalizer after 63 minutes. Six minutes earlier, fellow substitute Dani Alves had given the ball away in the lead-up to Cedric Bakambu's strike.

That had come after great work from Denis Suarez, with Fifa 17 Coins the winger impressing in front of Luis Enrique. On this form, Barca will almost certainly pay the 3 million euro ($3. 38 million) clause to buy back the former forward for next season.

Whether Mathieu and Alves will still be at Camp Nou, however, is in some doubt. Luis Enrique is keen to bring in a new center back in the summer, placing the Frenchman's position in some doubt. Meanwhile, the Brazilian is no longer a guaranteed starter for the first time in his Barca career and has been found out defensively with alarming regularity in the current campaign.

"We saw how the match started and the players understood that the match was not going to be easy, " Luis Enrique said afterwards. "It's not that we were distracted. The rival has great quality. If we had played badly, they would have taken us apart. "