[Champions League] Barcelona vs AC Milan

_LMG_10_ wrote:For anyone interested in a little preview:
http://tenmillionslaves.com/barcelonamilanpreview/

It contains a video compilation of AC Milan exposing barca's lack of width in the group stage match at the San Siro back in November.

Good video, that shows once mor that 343 is garbage.

They have Saint Siro...

...but we have God.

When playing away from home,teams usually defend with two banks of four,but Milan always leave 3 up front which means they should be effective on the counter which they weren't against Arsenal

Milan's weakness is that their midfield is narrow and Arsenal took advantage of this by playing two natural wingers on the flanks

_LMG_10_ wrote:For anyone interested in a little preview:
http://tenmillionslaves.com/barcelonamilanpreview/

It contains a video compilation of AC Milan exposing barca's lack of width in the group stage match at the San Siro back in November.

Yes the RB area was undermanned. Puyol was left to cover too much ground. He had to come out to Clarence Seedorf and let Ibrahimovic in behind for the goal.

But Both managers treated that game as something of an exhibition match it’s hard to believe it would have be so open in the knock out stages.

Why not good idea to track Messi




No forward to mark

Confused as a chameleon on a smartie box

Barcelona line-up (official): Valdés, Alves, Piqué, Mascherano, Puyol, Xavi, Busquets, Keita, Sanchez, Messi, Iniesta.

Bench: Pinto, Montoya, Muniesa, Fàbregas, Thiago, Pedro, Tello.

Oier, Afellay and Cuenca will watch the game from the stands.

I had bad feeling that Keita will start

Dani must be happy

The Franchise wrote:I am afraid to say, if Keita does not play this game...he will play in Milan lol

So, I hope he plays.

He didnt play that game.

Keita :vagi:

Keita? Wtf, you have Cesc, Pedro, Tello, Cuenca and Thiago at your disposal and you play Iniesta on the wing and Keita

Hopefully Keita produces his usual big game performance though

Well we'll find out in an hour, no sense stressing about it

That being said Sport is predicting Keita to play. According to them it's going to be: Valdés, Alves, Piqué, Mascherano, Puyol; Xavi, Busquets, Keita, Iniesta, Messi y Alexis Sánchez

El Mundo Deportivo is predicting the same lineup

I am more upset with Iniesta wide that I am Keita playing I have to say though.

We should really use the width Cuenca provides I feel.

Keita is Keita, he will hustle hard, he will press and he is a semi-danger to get a goal. Of course I prefer, Iniesta, Thiago and Cesc there instead but I am not that upset at this moment.

I just really wanted Cuenca tbh.

Keita starting in mid over Iniesta, Cex, Thiago? Wtf is going on here?

And whats with iniesta playing the wing with so many wing players at our disposal?

Mind boggling. I am officially nervous

Feck, feck, feck. Why Keita? He was meh and it meant Iniesta being meh as well. Everything was meh.

I did enjoy seeing Nesta defend though. Awesome. How the old man defended Messi was just great to see.

I'm very upset with Guardiola. This was his worst setup in a CL game since San Siro.

How in the hell we play without wingers vs. a team that plays narrow? We started with a 442 ffs!! When we switched to 433 when Tello came in we were much, much, much more in control of the game and created danger from the wing!

How the bloody hell is Keita starting and playing the whole match over Thiago, Pedro, Cuenca, Tello and Cesc? Keita was invisible, transparent. When we had the ball, it was like playing with a player less because our own players avoided to pass Keita the ball.

I'm quite upset with Alexis. As I know you all love him and will say he was great, I won't go deep, but I felt his game was indign from a Barça player.

Terrible game by Pep:

1)He was playng with no Lw for 60 minutes,Iniesta and keita doing basically the same thing except that keita was not doing it. There was no goal threat from that side nor was there someone to keep the full back busy,Bonera coud of have been a weak point but pep didnt take advantage of that.

2)Messi was too far from goal he was not a false 9 today,he was a No.10, in theory that seems like a good idea but it wasn't. Him and xavi were too close to each other(similar situation with iniesta and keita) and that didnt allow xavi to put messi through on goal and gave neither any space at all.

3)Pep relied on Alexis as the sole goalscoring threat idk why,in a game where we needed to score to have that away goal we were playing with one goal threat instead of usually three.

It really seems to me that pep was playing or a 0-0 and if we score,great. He should of have started with an actualy attacker on the left to threaten the goal and tire the full back(he had three options Pedro,Tello,Cuenca). He had Cesc and Iniesta for midfield but instead he played with Keita and when he had to sub one of them he chose to keep Keita

Pep's man crush on Keita needs to stop,playing him in the quarter final against Milan is going to far...

Yes i was so upset with iniesta on the wings. It does work against some teams but we needed widht , alves provided that but on the other wing , nothing . I was soo expecting to see keita out and iniesta going in the midifeld

This was not the best 11 possible. Sanchez and alves were the more dangerous , i wish xavi had a better shot
messi was ok , hope he will be demoniac at home.

free_cat wrote:I'm very upset with Guardiola. This was his worst setup in a CL game since San Siro.

How in the hell we play without wingers vs. a team that plays narrow? We started with a 442 ffs!! When we switched to 433 when Tello came in we were much, much, much more in control of the game and created danger from the wing!

How the bloody hell is Keita starting and playing the whole match over Thiago, Pedro, Cuenca, Tello and Cesc? Keita was invisible, transparent. When we had the ball, it was like playing with a player less because our own players avoided to pass Keita the ball.

I'm quite upset with Alexis. As I know you all love him and will say he was great, I won't go deep, but I felt his game was indign from a Barça player.

Alexis was one of the better Barça players on the pitch imo, definitely not a bad performance. Messi didn't play very well though and with Iniesta not playing up to his standard (pprobably mostly due to the position he played, although he wasn't good in the last La Liga game either) and Keita playing a mundane game of football it was very hard for him in that Milan defence.

We missed the spark.

Keita shouldn't of been on the pitch. Plain and simple. Having him on the pitch dramatically moved allot of players out of roles they should be in. Also why not just move Iniesta back to the mid or bring in Cex when it was time to make a sub? Could of done that, taken Keita out and brought in Tello. Instead he brings in Tello and leaves Keita out there? Wtf was going on? They are playing without Thiago Silva and Van Bommel and we don't play a better set up? We only used up 2 subs? Makes no sense, now we run the risk of getting a 1-1 draw at home and getting knocked out

I missed the match, so I'm rewatching it. Unfortunately I was not strong enough to not look at the score.

Anyways, I just finished watching the first half. I think playing a 4-4-1-1 against Milan is a ridiculously bad call. Milan has been playing very narrow and soaking up the pressure, someone like Cuenca could really stretch their defense and start to create spaces.

Keita and Iniesta have been invisible. All of our attacks have come from the middle from either Messi or Xavi, which goes to show their ability at finding a pass in very tight spaces. I really feel that Keita should've scored in the 5th minute, and Dani in the 9th.

The ref was badly positioned for the Alexis penalty, it was the lineman's fault, and even so it would have been a weak call, even if a right one.

Our finishing has been dreadful.

Pep

Hete BLKSM wrote:

free_cat wrote:I'm very upset with Guardiola. This was his worst setup in a CL game since San Siro.

How in the hell we play without wingers vs. a team that plays narrow? We started with a 442 ffs!! When we switched to 433 when Tello came in we were much, much, much more in control of the game and created danger from the wing!

How the bloody hell is Keita starting and playing the whole match over Thiago, Pedro, Cuenca, Tello and Cesc? Keita was invisible, transparent. When we had the ball, it was like playing with a player less because our own players avoided to pass Keita the ball.

I'm quite upset with Alexis. As I know you all love him and will say he was great, I won't go deep, but I felt his game was indign from a Barça player.

Alexis was one of the better Barça players on the pitch imo, definitely not a bad performance. Messi didn't play very well though and with Iniesta not playing up to his standard (pprobably mostly due to the position he played, although he wasn't good in the last La Liga game either) and Keita playing a mundane game of football it was very hard for him in that Milan defence.

We missed the spark.

Alexis was our main attacker and didn't manage a single shot on target while he was on the field.
He managed to waste a perfectly timed and set up strategy play with a poor touch and then dived to try to make up for it.
He managed to turn a clear one on one into a difficult chance by making a backheel pass to Xavi, in one of the most stupid decisions I've seen in a Barça forward for the last few seasons.
He managed to waste another one of one, not being able to even try Abbiati, letting bonera block his shot.
He didn't manage to drible a single player.
Only Keita and Iniesta as a winger were more useless than him.

Off to bed again, see if I can sleep now.

Watched the second half, Milan decided to play football and actually ventured into our own half. We were unable to take advantage of these spaces because we had an ineffective/out of form Iniesta and invisible Keita.

To Pep's credit he realized his mistake and then put Pedro and Tello on as wingers, but I felt like it was too little too late. Maybe if Thiago had been put on for Keita as well...

Free, Alexis wasnt very good but neither was Iniesta or Messi and coincidently not one of played in a role that suits them best......

Iniesta played outwide, Sanchez as CF and Messi as AM....

why cant Pep play Sanchez and Pedro outwide, Messi as CF and BusiXaviesta in midfield it surely cant be that hard can it?

IMO Xavi was the only one who could come away and say, i performed well as far as going forward goes.

Pep's decision were really mind boggling tonight it was like he decided we are not going to lose tonight and did everything possible to prevent Milan taking a lead.

Very negative from Pep.

Alexis doesn't play well out wide, he can't take a grandma on a walker.

But today, he was just horrendous. Messi was not bad.

I didn't think Messi was that bad, he placed some nice balls into the box, although he provided little goalscoring threat himself.

I agree that Alexis had a below average match, although he was quick to think on the almost-penalty. We expect more from him. I feel like Alexis plays best wide on the left, on the right he keeps drifting to the center.

The almost penalty comes because Alexis misses the control in a brilliant strategy play.

Pep didn't make it very easy on Messi with the lack of width in the lineup he put.

Alexis' runs weren't doing it and he wasn't making enough of them, and Iniesta isn't able to provide too much width so Milan were very compact and narrow making it hard for Messi to get through and be a better goalscoring threat.