Progress?

Yes, I know right now it feels horrible and thinking about positives is the least thing we would like to do. But this is also a somewhat worrying questions: Are we actually making progress against Barca?

The way Mourinho excecuted his plan against Barca was insane, I was the first one to criticise it. But I do get his reasoning. If we failed when trying to attack and play on their level, he tried the counter and park the bus system which worked for us previously. Obviously, that didn't work out. We got dominated at home, and it seems blatantly obvious that we are making no progress at all, that we will never be able to beat this Barca side.

But lets think about it another way. In the 4 rapid fire clasicos, we started off with the 1-1 which was extremely promising after the 5-0, then won the Copa, and of course lost in the 2-0. In these games, Mou used his counter attacking park the bus system, and to some end it worked out. Of course, Wolfgang Stark put an end to that. The Supercopas next. We approached it in a completely different way, much more attacking and taking the game to them. We were unlucky to lose, mostly down to luck and the Messi. So understandably, Mou tried to use the same system in the December Clasico. He messed up the lineup/tactics somewhat, but again we lost due to extreme bad luck. 3-1.

Which leads us, of course, to the Copa first leg Clasico. Tried to switch back to our more successful counter system, and screwed it. So obviously that isnt the way forward either. I wonder, if we were to use the attacking, more posession oriented scheme again, would we do better? I don't know if Mourinho is learning from this, but is there some glimmer of progress? We were all happy with the way Ronaldo, Ramos, Coentrao, etc played.

I would like to remind you all that after the 4 Clasicos last year, we were all convinced that we could never stand up to Barca by playing our way. Yet we did it in the Supercopa. So can we learn from this, and are we actually making progress against Barca?

Was disappointed in Ramos actually, looked very shaky and allowing Barca to score is inexcusable.It propably wasn't his fault but it's inexcusable.

Another point I wanted to make.

In the beginning our problem was not scoring, then we started scoring against them. In the last few games, we managed to take the first lead, but we couldnt keep it. This time, despite parking the bus, we got the lead and held it for longer than ever before. Progress?

I made the same thread but it got drowned out....
we should stop being so negative and take the positives out of the past 2 games, yes we lost, but at least we are learning from each loss
Compare the last game with this one, Ronaldo never tracked back and was useless against Barca but last night, he was our dangerman, and thats a MASSIVE plus in our favor
to have that psychological barrier broken down against them is extremely important
now hopefully our players learnt that we have the strength to be better than them now just that thought we CAN beat them, if that thought creeps into the minds of 7 or8 of the players out there then we can win and maybe even win at the NOU CAMP

We've never used possession style of play vs Barca. As soon as Barca press we hoof the ball and they have it again.

Our progress is much slower than Barcas. we had the summer to buy the tools we need to beat them but we failed, we bought a player who's supposed to solve our midfield problem but apparently Mou doesn't know where to play him. Coentrao didn't help us either.

On the other side Barca bought one of the best passers of the ball which adds to their midfield superiority, an explosive player who's a consistent danger for any defense.

We are progressing but we don't believe in our football, when we lose a game by luck, we think our tactic was wrong so again back to the first step (PTB).

We should stick to one strategy, changing our approach every game will not get us anywhere.

I certsinly think thst there's been progess, but it may have peaked, if we can't keep the ball.
30% os possession and a couple of shots, won't win many matches, without defensive prefection!