Luis Enrique: 'Lionel Messi the greatest of all time'

Barcelona boss Luis Enrique has claimed that Lionel Messi is the greatest footballer of all time following his record-breaking hat-trick in Saturday's 5-1 rout of Sevilla.

The Argentine equalled and then broke Telmo Zarra's La Liga record of 251 goals by scoring three times at the Camp Nou last night to take his league tally to 253.

The achievement capped a turbulent week for the 27-year-old, who had previously hinted that he may leave the Catalan giants in the near future.

"I like living the present and this is marvellous with the best player of the history, to me, in our team," Enrique told reporters.

"We are not going to feed the talking. I trust his quotes I have heard from him and we have to keep on working for improving and trying to raise our level for reaching titles, which is the target we work on."

Victory over Unai Emery's side helped Barca remain two points adrift of Real Madrid at the summit.