When Lionel Messi went down on Sept. 26 during a match against Las Palmas, everyone knew Barcelona was in trouble.

To that point, the team had been devastated by injuries and even with the Argentine magician, the team's offensive spark was waning.

Losing Messi was almost the white flag of surrender.

Yet that has hardly been the case with Barcelona's offense suddenly surging with La Pulga. In fact, one could argue that since Messi's absence, Barcelona's other two dynamic superstars have filled in admirably.

Judging from his eight goals and three assists in La Liga, one might be inclined to see Neymar as the main catalyst for the resurgence, but the reality is that Luis Suarez has been the real hero of the show.

Since Messi went down against Las Palmas Neymar has contributed five goals and five assists. However, four of his goals came in one game; he has been a more consistent set-up man with five assists across three games. Moreover, two of Neymar's goals came off penalties; he did earn the kicks himself. Neymar, however, missed a penalty against Las Palmas in a game that saw Suarez turn into the hero.

Yet that could not be on the same level of consistency as Suarez who has seven goals since Messi went down across four different games; he also has one assist to boot.

In fact during that very game against Las Palmas it was Suarez who scored the two big goals. He also saved Barcelona after a poor start against Eibar and was the hero in a poor performance against Eibar. Suarez also assisted Neymar on his big game of four goals in a 5-2 win against Rayo Vallecano. In that span he has not scored a single goal off of a penalty.

What else about Suarez has been fantastic? His conversion rate this season has been terrific despite a low number of shots. While Neymar is averaging around 4.35 shots per game in La Liga and the Champions League, Suarez is getting around 3.6. He has converted on 22.4 percent of the shots that he has taken; Neymar has scored on 15.6 percent. Not a shabby number for Neymar, but when you consider that he had a few penalties sprinkled in there, Suarez's numbers look that much better.

Then comes a matter of the intangible. Suarez has scored three game winners since Messi went down; all three winning tallies have come in the second half and two of them came on the heels of comebacks for Barcelona. Neymar has just one game winner, though to his credit he has been assisting a few other winners.

One of these men is destined to join Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo on the Ballon d'Or top three. Or if both continue to play the way they have, it could be a case of seeing the entire MSN on the final ballot at the expense of CR7.

If you could only pick one, it would have to be Luis Suarez.