UCL: Chelsea v Barcelona

You don't want to. If they give ratings like those than they should no longer be a site...

windkick wrote:I havnt visited that site since the forum went down

Where do u go for your daily football news?

ESPNSoccernet
Telegraph
Marca sometimes

A few comments:
1. Luck. Should we play the same game 10 times we would at least draw 8. Haven’t seen so much bad luck in one game.
2. Sub par performances. Alves was atrocious, Xavi and Messi invisible while Puyol and Mach (while not bad overall) cost us the goal. I refuse to blame Sanchez as he falls to point 1 (along with Pedro and Busquets)
3. Formation. I’m not a coach but why don’t we play proper wingers with Iniesta alongside Xavi. Isn’t the Xaviesta combo a crucial part of our past sucess?
Anyway, the return leg is a tricky one. We should be wary for an away goal especial from a set piece as we significantly lack hight

My god. How useless were Cesc and Alexis yesterday. We sign players to improve our team, not to screw it.

I'm very pissed with them and with Guardiola. He should know better than to put that lineup and it took him 85 minutes to get it right when he finally brought up Cuenca.

I'm sorry for Guardiola, but I don't care anymore if he renews or not. He clearly is losing it. If he renews, great, I think he is still the best coach for us. If he doesn't, we can find someone new that is not biased to his signings and his crazy loves.

I think that we are quite screwed, don't see us turning around the result with the mega airplane Chelsea will park and with the atrocious way of playing against it we showed. You need to put players in between the lines ffs!!!!! You need to take some risks!!! Don't play Xavi in the second leg, he is useless when the opposition parks an airplane. 90 minutes of sideways passing as we saw yesterday.

Puaj, add to all that, a non-fan coming here to rub on our faces that he went to Stamford Bridge. I suppose he even enjoyed and cheered for Chelsea. Danyjr gtfo.

What’s this now?
Teams park the buss all the time against us and now the whole team has a bad game and the verdict is that Xavi is useless contributing only side passes?

Get sober please. These are stuff Moudrid fans say

billy_gr wrote:What’s this now?
Teams park the buss all the time against us and now the whole team has a bad game and the verdict is that Xavi is useless contributing only side passes?

Get sober please. These are stuff Moudrid fans say

Let me rephrase. He is useless vs. elite teams that park an airplane.
It's a fact. Not moudrid fans gibberish. And I'm a bigger Xavi admirer than you are.

free_cat wrote:

billy_gr wrote:What’s this now?
Teams park the buss all the time against us and now the whole team has a bad game and the verdict is that Xavi is useless contributing only side passes?

Get sober please. These are stuff Moudrid fans say

And I'm a bigger Xavi admirer than you are.

yes, you've beaten me already in the relevant test...

Yo free, would it be cool if i Facebook messaged you tonight/day? I'm doing an assignment on Spanish political culture. Thought you could help me as its about regional differences. General knowledge would help get me started

I must disagree with the "we played badly" air around here, Barca had a decent match, fact 1- we did not score, fact 2- they scored... yet we obviously controlled the pitch in England and considering our away form this season, BARCA 3 - 0 Chelsea Camp Nou. Messi scores a Brace and Xavi scores one.

No Inter Milan scenario here, but an Arsenal one.. you can just smell it !

and 3-1 versus Madrid also !

Cech, Cole and Post were the men of the match last night for crying out loud...

free_cat wrote:Puaj, add to all that, a non-fan coming here to rub on our faces that he went to Stamford Bridge. I suppose he even enjoyed and cheered for Chelsea. Danyjr gtfo.

Yeah that's exactly what I did, went all the way to London, paid all that money and took photos just to rub it in your faces

danyjr wrote:

free_cat wrote:Puaj, add to all that, a non-fan coming here to rub on our faces that he went to Stamford Bridge. I suppose he even enjoyed and cheered for Chelsea. Danyjr gtfo.

Yeah that's exactly what I did, went all the way to London, paid all that money and took photos just to rub it in your faces

Obviously not "just", but you did, and considering you are not a Barça fan is quite a pointless thing to do tbh. Did you enjoy bing all neutral and acting as an impartial reporter at Stamford Bridge?

billy_gr wrote:

free_cat wrote:

billy_gr wrote:What’s this now?
Teams park the buss all the time against us and now the whole team has a bad game and the verdict is that Xavi is useless contributing only side passes?

Get sober please. These are stuff Moudrid fans say

And I'm a bigger Xavi admirer than you are.

yes, you've beaten me already in the relevant test...

It's difficult to be a bigger Xavi admirer than me. I'm the only person I know that I've said since he made his debut that he would become one of the world's best players. Anyway, it's irrelevant to the point, that is that Xavi plays way too safe when you have to turn a game around vs a park-the-plane elite team.

BarcaKizz wrote:
Yo free, would it be cool if i Facebook messaged you tonight/day? I'm doing an assignment on Spanish political culture. Thought you could help me as its about regional differences. General knowledge would help get me started

No problem.

Remember... me, you and Alex... the trio of Xavi fanboys. You can't seperate us

BarcaKizz wrote:Remember... me, you and Alex... the trio of Xavi fanboys. You can't seperate us

Hum... weren't you still hanging from your father balls when Xavi made his debut at 18?

free_cat wrote:

BarcaKizz wrote:Remember... me, you and Alex... the trio of Xavi fanboys. You can't seperate us

Hum... weren't you still hanging from your father balls when Xavi made his debut at 18?

Haha. Does this make me less of a fan? Well first season I can remember Xavi is 2000 I believe.

im still really concered that our boys will be tired from the Clasico. I'm sure R. Madrid is worried as well but then again they have more depth

This is going to be about as good as it gets for Chelsea to knock us out

svt wrote:In my opinion, this is a huge overreaction from everyone... All this nonsense of us going out next week, the slander against Cesc, Alexis and Pep as well as the talk of our demise this season is just grossly exaggerated.

On another day, Barca win 3-1...

The rest of you need to stop over reacting and grow up!

Tbf most of the posts immediately after the game were rants. We're not the Madrid section, we merely were letting off steam at a disappointing result.

I cant think of another game where a team dominated so much and still came away with a loss.
We had 5,6 clear chances to score and another few half chances.We score none.Chelsea had one chance all game and they score.
Oh and with the disgraceful way that Chelsea played is it any wonder that England dont win anything.
I think the problem in these sorts of games is really simple.In such games Messi is so tightly marked that our best chances dont fall to him.He takes out 3,4 players every time he touches the ball and as a result it frees up other players and our chances fall to them.Unfortunately barring Messi, who is the best in the business our other players are average finishers.
I can guarantee that had all those chances fallen to Messi we would have won by 3 or 4 goals.

Coming to some of the specific comments.
I cant believe some of the comments on Messi.The way I saw it he was the best player on the pitch by a country mile.Every single time he touched the ball he was swarmed by Chelsea players and yet still he managed to create openings.We created around 6,7 clear chances and in every single one of them Messi was involved and yet I see comments that he was invisible and lacked imagination.
What the hell is he supposed to do?
All his teammates did was 'Lets give the ball to Messi and he will pull a rabbit out of the hat'.
Iniesta,Xavi,Busquets,Alexis,Fabregas everyone was guilty of this. Just pass the ball and let him do magic while we stand and be spectators and Messi responded almost every time.
I was critical of him against Levante but he was terrific against Chelsea and its performances like these which make me want him as our future captain.
When the chips are down he steps up.
I also dont blame him one bit for the goal they scored.He is the only one actually trying to make something happen and when he is swarmed that much sometimes he will lose the ball.Cant fault him one bit for actually trying to do something.
Fault lies with Masch who was watching the ball and forgot about Drogba.

Coming to our culprits who were guilty of being passive.
The 2 biggest culprits for me were Iniesta and Alexis.
Iniesta got the better of Ivanovic once with an exquisite piece of skill.But after that all he did was pass the ball sideways.He is the one player besides Messi in our team who is capable of beating multiple players.And yet a goal down he does nothing and passes the buck to Messi to do it all on his own.
He is a terrific big game player and yet yesterday he didnt step up and left it all to Messi.

Coming to Alexis,where do I start?
Alexis 'Mr Passback' Sanchez.What do I do when I receive the ball and am one vs one with a defender?I just pass it back.This is a list of some of the names i drew up in under a minute who are better dribblers than Mr Passback.
Messi,Pedro,Cuenca,Tello,Fabregas,Xavi,Iniesta,my 3 year old niece, Thiago, the retired uncle from across the hall, Busquets,Keita,my 3 year old niece,
JDS,Puyol,Masch,Pique,Adriano,Alves,the retired uncle from across the hall , the traffic light on the street,Valdes,Pinto,the traffic light on the street and my 3 year old niece.Thats just in one minute.
A joke of a performance.After all the hype in the summer I was expecting a poor man's Messi at the very least.Instead what we have is a poor poor man's Pedro.And before someone once more brings up the 'Pep has told him not to dribble' excuse.Please dont cause its stupid.
He can sit down on the bench for the rest of the season.Bring on young Cuenca and Tello who actually have the guts to take on a defender unlike Mr Passback.

And how ironic is it that the greatest critic of Fabregas on this forum actually thinks he had a good game when everyone else thinks he was poor.
Granted he didnt play in midfield where he was supposed to but with Chelsea parking the bus we needed players forward and he provided that.
And instead of 'I lack guts so I will just give the ball to Messi Mr passback' fabregas actually tried to do something with the ball.He ran the defense,tried to be direct and didnt lose many balls.Even set up Mr Passback with a beauty only for him to waste it.I think Fabregas had a good game.

We are still the favorites to go through and will go through if one of 2 things happen.
Our chances fall to Messi or our other forwards actually sum up the guts to do something instead of just giving the ball to Messi and hoping for magic every single time.
Oh and ofcourse Mr Passback has to be benched.

Cesc and Alexis were atrocious yesterday.Cesc with two awful finishes but he did some good passing.Alexis however,Missed two great chances and i cant belive this guy is worth 40m..He is only good against mid-table teams.His speed is average,His dribbling has been awful.He averages less than 1 dribble per game,His passing isnt good enough.And his scoring ability is nowhere near Villa's or the on-form pedro.Also Pep is partially to blame for putting an atrocious line up and putting Iniesta on the wing,again.Also Free cat is right,Xavi is useless against parking the bus teams.Yesterday in the last 10 minutes I was screaming at the Tv for him to move the ball forward.I just hope we can make a comeback at Camp Nou and go ahead to the Final of the CL.

free_cat wrote:My god. How useless were Cesc and Alexis yesterday. We sign players to improve our team, not to screw it.

I'm very pissed with them and with Guardiola. He should know better than to put that lineup and it took him 85 minutes to get it right when he finally brought up Cuenca.

I'm sorry for Guardiola, but I don't care anymore if he renews or not. He clearly is losing it. If he renews, great, I think he is still the best coach for us. If he doesn't, we can find someone new that is not biased to his signings and his crazy loves.

I think that we are quite screwed, don't see us turning around the result with the mega airplane Chelsea will park and with the atrocious way of playing against it we showed. You need to put players in between the lines ffs!!!!! You need to take some risks!!! Don't play Xavi in the second leg, he is useless when the opposition parks an airplane. 90 minutes of sideways passing as we saw yesterday.

That exactly why he is still waiting to renew . Himself admitted that it was hard , he needs a break of course . I mean, at least he is trying , he makes mistakes sometimes but it's normall . His opponents are getting stronger and stronger

Alexis yesterday:Receives the ball on the right,Waits for 2 or 3 seconds and then passes it to the nearest player with awful accuracy.Why doesnt he have the balls to try to beat his man????I can think of 200 players that are better dribblers than Sanchez.The only thing he has done that was so important to us was scoring In the clasico at Santiago Bernabeu.

Soem mroe thoughts, as some mentioned, it was just one of those days, no need to knee jerk Although obviously the thing is Chelea have a chance now, if they come up with another goal in the Nou Camp we would need to score 3, and if they defend like they did again, it will be hard.

I think Puyol and Macherno made mistake by both sticking to Drogba too cloesly. Its alwyas better to have 1 close and 1 a bit off and leave some distance and time to cover. The goal says it all, both attracted to him, then both ran towrrds goal leaving him free. Im sure Pep will sort that out so Drogba wont be as effective next leg. Secondly players like Adriano is a big threat but he wasnt adventureous enough, especially considering Mata rarely attacked. So next game, more much risk going forward for us if they play 4-5-1 again. ?We didnt play 1-2s enough, make enough runs, didnt pass it fast enough,m all this will change in the next leg Im sure of it.

Regarding Cesc I think its unfair again, he has weaknesses but his work continues to be underrated. His slow at times, but at other time he offers a lot to the team. Sznchez didnt really flop, it just wasnt easy for him...

Overall bar another unlucky night, we will win and go through next leg!

BarrileteCosmico wrote:JD can you enumerate your misgivings with Pep? I only have one or two, and that's playing Iniesta wide instead of Cuenca there and Iniesta in the midfield. I know it was a rant, but you said his entire approach was wrong. I don't really see it that way.

You have a point alfred. However I am angry for more reasons than that. Today I will share something very controversial which some time back I thought it was best I kept to myself.

Remember batman? Most people here didn't like him. He did exaggerate his points. However the crux of what he said has stayed with me and slowly I have started seeing a grain of truth in it.

See there have been many times in the past when Pep has proved us wrong and shown that what we didn't think was possible and worthwhile was actually both possible and worthwhile. First he moved Messi to the center from the right. Then he made him a false number 9. So far so good. However this season he has overdone it. He is often making Messi play like a midfielder - a number 10 that sometimes appears more like a number 8. I ask what for. How can you have the two best midfielders in the world in Xavi and Iniesta and then play them out of position and undermine them just so that everything runs through Messi? This over-indulgence of Messi is now starting to get on my nerves. Messi at Barcelona just doesn't need to be the Messi of Argentina - a Maradona-esque one man show. We are far too good a team for that.

If that already wasn't enough to destroy Xaviesta then Pep brings in Fabregas for very little rhyme or reason, plays him in almost every match in a role that nobody including Pep and Cesc can fully comprehend and makes for one lopsided formation after another with ever changing tactics. When you change formations and tactics that often, you may have heard it does less to confuse your opponents and more to confuse your own players. The last time I think I saw Xaviesta on the pitch was the UCL 2011 final and the memories of that still keep circulating in my head.

Also what is this business of playing without forwards? Not sure how many of you have read Brian Glanville's 'History Of The World Cups'. I would like to discuss one excellent point that he makes. People say the Brazil of 1982 was an extraordinary team that was unlucky not to win the tournament. However what few know is that team had one major weakness - it had no forwards. Now look at us. In 2008-09, we played with 3 proper forwards. In 2010-11, we still played with 2.5 since Messi was a false number 9. Now we play with 0.5 or even zero forwards. Fabregas/Iniesta are played in forward positions and neither are forwards. Messi is played too much as a midfielder. Now about Alexis Sanchez. Is he a winger? Well he hasn't shown those qualities yet. Is he a center forward? No he is not. Then what is he. I guess an inside forward and a very one footed one at that.

Lastly I will say that I think very brilliant coaches who love the game of football a bit too much sometimes become victims of their own eccentricities. Carlo Ancelotti is the best example of that. Pep seems to be going a little bit in that direction though you could say its early days yet.