La Liga Best XI: Lionel Messi beaten to player of month award for April

Here we reveal the best rated XI from the month of April in La Liga and run through the top five WhoScored rated players from within it.

5. Koke (Atletico Madrid) - 7.53 rating

Koke will perhaps be disappointed with his individual campaign when he has time to take stock in the summer but the 27-year-old is at least finishing the season strongly. The Spanish midfielder created more goalscoring opportunities than any other player in La Liga last month (18), in which only one was converted by a team-mate. Koke also completed the most passes in the division in April (392) and in his last two appearances of the month his pass success rate was in excess of 90%.

4. Santi Cazorla (Villarreal) - 7.54 rating

Santi Cazorla rolled back the years in April and turned in some sparkling performances for Villarreal to help guide the Yellow Submarine five points clear of the bottom three. Impressively, the 34-year-old did not miss a minute of league action in April, completing 90 minutes in all six of Villarreal’s La Liga games - no player in the division managed more. Not only that, but Cazorla registered an assist in four of those outings, taking his tally to the league campaign to double figures for the first time since 2014/15.

3. Lionel Messi (Barcelona) - 7.72 rating

It required extraordinary runs of form from two players to prevent Barcelona’s Lionel Messi from finishing as the WhoScored Player of the Month in La Liga. Ernesto Valverde has been managing Messi’s workload over the last month to have him firing on all cylinders in the Champions League but it didn’t prevent the Barcelona No.10 from scoring three times, including the goal that clinched the league title, and register one assist in five league appearances last month.

2. Iago Aspas (Celta Vigo) - 7.97 rating

Celta Vigo are fortunate to have Iago Aspas otherwise they would be well and truly relegated. His impact this season has been remarkable and they are entirely depending on his goals to keep them up. Aspas played a direct hand in eight goals in five league appearances in April and they earned Celta an extra 10 points. Celta will contest their first game in the month of May at home to champions Barcelona this weekend two points clear of the bottom three.

1. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid) - 8.11 rating

Karim Benzema is enjoying his best goalscoring campaign in La Liga in three years, doing so in the wake of Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure last summer. The 31-year-old has 21 league goals for the campaign and netted seven of those in April alone. Benzema remarkably scored all of Madrid’s league goals in April and that run also stretches into their final game of March.