Matchday 34: Barcelona - Real Madrid | Sat Apr 21st | 20:00 CET/14:00 ET

Tello.

Dunno what Guardiola sees in that kid, coz he is crap to me. I would have forgiven for trying to go past Albeorla twice using the same stupid trick, but three or four times? No.

I'm not even gonna start about his misses and failure to pass the ball on numerous occasions, while opting to shoot instead.

Dissapointed and proud at the same time. Long term im proud.

We were 12 points back or something and battled hard to pull it back, they could have thrown in the towel like many of here were suggesting they should but they filled me with pride with their efforts not to.

But I am very dissapointed today, not just because La Liga is lost but because we lost this game. We could have stolen the league from them..Madrid have deserved it more but we still could have stolen it..but he failed to.

Madrid defended like they were defending the lead they have in the league, we didnt attack like we wanted to steal it from them.

I am dissapointed with individuals, I cannot lie. As much as I dont want to blame individuals, I really have to.

Iniesta was simply shocking..in fact, I will go as so far as to say, shameful. He lost the ball I dont know how many times, made error after error and lost it in crucial positions. He did literally nothing good. It was one of the worst individual performances from any of our players this season. Thats how bad it was.

He sucked vs Chelsea and he sucked vs Milan. Where is big game Iniesta now?

You can excuse him that he shouldnt be thrown out on the left as often as he is, but whats the excuse today?

Busquets reminded me of the Busquets I hated 3 years ago. Taking an age in possession, getting it stolen from him and no defensive impact whatsoever.

Those two annoyed me the most, neither played like the season was on the line...and it was.

Tello obviously was bad..but he is a kid, who shouldnt even be playing anyway. He is as I fear..too obvious, too 1 dimensional. His finishing dissapeared too..as shown in Alexis goal and the other chance he skied.

Pedro really should have started.

Thiago again, just like Osasuna, can come off the pitch with immense pride in his performance. He lost the ball once or twice in his own half..but overall, he was excellent.

I aint really intrested in praising anyone else for tonight. Messi tried, Dani Alves tried, Puyol, Adriano and Mascherano tried and all of them gave a performance good enough in standard generally speaking.

Xavi and Valdes obviously tried, but just couldnt provide a good enough performance.

S32TABLANCA wrote:

kiranr wrote:

S32TABLANCA wrote:
Anyway, I dont want to argue. Just wanted to say congratulastions to Barca for a deserved second place.

No doubt Saeta. Must feel good after waiting so long. Enjoy it.

Thank you. Im sure you'll be right there in it next year anyway.

And dont forget, we might have another clasico in the CL final

It surely can't be good for my heart. You have no idea of the range of emotions i went through in tonight's match.

The Franchise wrote:Dissapointed and proud at the same time. Long term im proud.

We were 12 points back or something and battled hard to pull it back, they could have thrown in the towel like many of here were suggesting they should but they filled me with pride with their efforts not to.

But I am very dissapointed today, not just because La Liga is lost but because we lost this game. We could have stolen the league from them..Madrid have deserved it more but we still could have stolen it..but he failed to.

Madrid defended like they were defending the lead they have in the league, we didnt attack like we wanted to steal it from them.

I am dissapointed with individuals, I cannot lie. As much as I dont want to blame individuals, I really have to.

Iniesta was simply shocking..in fact, I will go as so far as to say, shameful. He lost the ball I dont know how many times, made error after error and lost it in crucial positions. He did literally nothing good. It was one of the worst individual performances from any of our players this season. Thats how bad it was.

He sucked vs Chelsea and he sucked vs Milan. Where is big game Iniesta now?

You can excuse him that he shouldnt be thrown out on the left as often as he is, but whats the excuse today?

Busquets reminded me of the Busquets I hated 3 years ago. Taking an age in possession, getting it stolen from him and no defensive impact whatsoever.

Those two annoyed me the most, neither played like the season was on the line...and it was.

Tello obviously was bad..but he is a kid, who shouldnt even be playing anyway. He is as I fear..too obvious, too 1 dimensional. His finishing dissapeared too..as shown in Alexis goal and the other chance he skied.

Pedro really should have started.

Thiago again, just like Osasuna, can come off the pitch with immense pride in his performance. He lost the ball once or twice in his own half..but overall, he was excellent.

I aint really intrested in praising anyone else for tonight. Messi tried, Dani Alves tried, Puyol, Adriano and Mascherano tried and all of them gave a performance good enough in standard generally speaking.

Xavi and Valdes obviously tried, but just couldnt provide a good enough performance.

As Ive said a few times, I think Xavi is mssing Inestia's presence in the middle of the pitch and doesn't perform the way he usually did last season. We have a better team on paper but we ain't performing to strandards. Inestia needs to be placed IN THE MIDDLE, no Fabregas, no Kieta and no Thaigo. XavInestia is vital and we are losing our grip as a team without them. Valdes had a shocker, so did the whole of the defense including Busi. Infact, everyone did. Tello... Couldn't believe it when he was chosen. Arbeloa has been rubbish this season and Tello just made him look like the greatest right back in the world. NO JOKE! Ramos also stepped up and played the best performance this season. Shut down Messi with ease. Gave little time on the ball... He certainly will be ready for Euro with that performance. This certainly is a downer. We had to win, not just for a chance to win the league but for momentuem for CL clash with Chelsea. Come on Barca! Practise the beautiful game, tika-taka and have hope!

Pep needs to stop playing midfielders on the wing. Xavi Iniesta work best when next to each other. We have a good set of wingers, why not use them

If we lose to Chelsea I am going to be devastated

I told a friend yesterday that we need a new forward. Now that could either be Villa coming back better than ever before, or someone new.

This match showed our serious depleted resources up front. And who knows, maybe the same will happen against the fifty banks of four Chelsea will undoubtedly line up with. It's going to be a rather disappointing end to the season, simply because it is finally getting hard for Messi to shoulder the entire attacking burden himself.

I think Pep again made a couple of mistakes.One was playing 3 at the back and as a consequence of that Alves up on the wing.
I think Tello on the left was a good idea just that the kid had a shocker.
We played a bit like last season.Messi drops deep,Tello makes the run inside and Messi finds him.Just that kid got stage fright and played bad.
We needed Pedro on the other side to the same with Alves providing the width.
Pep got it wrong there.Second mistake was taking Xavi off.We were in complete control of the midfield till he was on.After he went off we lost midfield control and I think from then on possession was 50-50.Aprt from the goal we didnt create much and Madrid looked more dangerous than they had all match.Xavi shouldnt have been taken off.Tello should have been the one to go.
On their first goal both valdes and Puyol are to blame.Valdes for being indecisive and Puyol for failing to clear.
And we are just pathetic are set pieces now without Abidal and Pique. Puyol is the only one good in the air and every time the opposition gets a set piece they look likely to score.

Now on to the only positive from this match.Thiago.
Kid put in a MOM performance.A game where he displayed skill,heart,desire, determination and guts.Terrific performance.He has come in this season and shown that he can hang with the greatest midfield in history.
Not only hang but sometimes even outperform the likes of Xavi,Iniesta and Busquets.
Kid is going to be a bonafide superstar and its scary the amount of potential he has.I have no doubt in my mind that in a couple of seasons he will reach Xavi and Iniesta level provided he keeps learning.
The future of our midfield is safe in the hands of Thiago and Busquets.

bazinga wrote:I told a friend yesterday that we need a new forward. Now that could either be Villa coming back better than ever before, or someone new.

This match showed our serious depleted resources up front. And who knows, maybe the same will happen against the fifty banks of four Chelsea will undoubtedly line up with. It's going to be a rather disappointing end to the season, simply because it is finally getting hard for Messi to shoulder the entire attacking burden himself.

Spot on.In games like these,Messi is not getting the best chances. because he is heavily marked.But when he so heavily marked we need our other forwards to step up and exploit the space.
Last season we had Villa and Pedro.This season we have no one.

BarcaKizz wrote:Oh well. Heads up guys. Realistically the title was lost a while ago, we only ever had a fool's hope. I don't think it would be fair to criticise one player for this loss. There were mistakes, but at the end of the day it just summed up our season. We weren't inferior but they had the killer instinct and won the game. Like I've said, priority is the UCL.

Oh and Alexis is not just Mr Passback and showed again he can be influential in an big game. Not too sure why he can play with fire in this game but not against Chelsea. I'm sure he'll have a better 2nd leg.

Thiago was immense, great selection.

It seems my nickname has caught on.
However apart from the tapin which did get us back into the game( for a minute) Mr Passback didnt do much.

Why only rely on Messi for goal scoring. In previous seasons we have had Eto'o, Henry, and Villa. Even Zlatan was bought for the purpose of scoring goals. But now there is only Messi who can be considered a true goal scorer.

Also by not having alves right back it felt like we essentially lost a player when we were attacking because usually he would join the attack on the overlap from defense. Instead we had Puyol who would only occasionally venture forward.

Just me, but didn't it end up being a 4-3-3 cause Busq would drop back?

Pretty disappointed. Didn't think we were that bad, but our defense in set pieces is horrible. Which is also why we need Pique back.

I think we all realise we need someone else to score goals up front by now. Lets all stop banging on about it. I'm in the boat that if it doesn't get better it may be wise to buy someone else. Pedro not playing today shows that he's even lost Guardiola's faith. We might have a lot of players potentially there, but quality is important, not quantity. Going to be something to fix for next year. Madrid's attack is just that much better.

BarcaKizz wrote:I think we all realise we need someone else to score goals up front by now. Lets all stop banging on about it. I'm in the boat that if it doesn't get better it may be wise to buy someone else. Pedro not playing today shows that he's even lost Guardiola's faith. We might have a lot of players potentially there, but quality is important, not quantity. Going to be something to fix for next year. Madrid's attack is just that much better.

Yep.Him not starting Pedro against Chelsea and Madrid shows that Pep has lost confidence in him.And the one fault I find with Pep is that once he loses confidence in a player,its not likely he will give him a second chance.
We really needed last 2 season's Pedro for games like these to take some of the burden off of Messi.

No doubt... Interesting to see if he starts against Chelsea. If he does, he plays well and we win, he's back in the team. If that doesn't happen... I really don't know. I guess its a sad, but also interesting time for us. Whether we win the CL or not, we have changes to make and problems to fix.

It would be nice if us losing will give teams more confidence to play against us. Getting sick of watching teams getting more and more conservative against us. It makes for nothing but frustration most of the time.

We've got Chelsea now, much bigger match for me... and I think Pep prioritised it too.

alexjanosik wrote:

BarcaKizz wrote:Oh well. Heads up guys. Realistically the title was lost a while ago, we only ever had a fool's hope. I don't think it would be fair to criticise one player for this loss. There were mistakes, but at the end of the day it just summed up our season. We weren't inferior but they had the killer instinct and won the game. Like I've said, priority is the UCL.

Oh and Alexis is not just Mr Passback and showed again he can be influential in an big game. Not too sure why he can play with fire in this game but not against Chelsea. I'm sure he'll have a better 2nd leg.

Thiago was immense, great selection.

It seems my nickname has caught on.
However apart from the tapin which did get us back into the game( for a minute) Mr Passback didnt do much.

Niether did Cesc much though he had less time than Sanchez. Its good that Guardiola is on the right track. Resting the players that are lacking condifence.

alexjanosik wrote:

BarcaKizz wrote:I think we all realise we need someone else to score goals up front by now. Lets all stop banging on about it. I'm in the boat that if it doesn't get better it may be wise to buy someone else. Pedro not playing today shows that he's even lost Guardiola's faith. We might have a lot of players potentially there, but quality is important, not quantity. Going to be something to fix for next year. Madrid's attack is just that much better.

Yep.Him not starting Pedro against Chelsea and Madrid shows that Pep has lost confidence in him.And the one fault I find with Pep is that once he loses confidence in a player,its not likely he will give him a second chance.
We really needed last 2 season's Pedro for games like these to take some of the burden off of Messi.

Villa situation (this season all over again), though Im sure Pep also wanted attached to Cesc as well. We don't just need Pedro to help Messi but the other attackers (Sanchez, Cuenca, Tello and Afellay). Without Messi, most chances wouldn't be taken.

CBarca wrote:

In retrospect Pedro just had to be in the starting lineup tonight no matter what kind of form he was in.

This is true. This is very true.

After calming down a bit, I think people are overreacting, I think this team still has the most talent in the world (and indeed on a different day we could have easily have won) and the best teamwork, but I think here is where we see the detriments of injuries on this Barcelona team.

In better terms and in more precise terms, off-form Pedro and Villa.

Chelsea's game and todays game shows how crucial Pedro and Villa were to the Barca 2011 and their relative absence from this season, and the lack of an impact from Sanchez and Fabregas really has to be the reason for the team this season not performing *quite* up to standards (especially compared to last season). Barca are missing the runs and movement from Pedro and Villa so much, and this is what makes Barcelona seem so much more reliant on Messi (and it's true to be honest).

As we've said all season, the goals simply aren't there. Sanchez has done a decent job trying to make those runs and create space like Pedro and Villa, but a forward line of Messi, Fabregas, and Sanchez (or replacing Fabregas/Sanchez with Tello or Cuenca) just doesn't work like MVP did.

However, heads up- we still have a CDR to win (not that that matters) and Chelsea to put away. We can still win the CL- and that's the most important thing. Today's loss stings, but it happens.

Very well said CB.

The Franchise wrote:Where is big game Iniesta now?

At the moment nowhere dani. Unless something drastically different happens either on Tuesday night or at Euro 2012 both of which I think are unlikely especially the latter, this is the lowest point of his career.

alexjanosik wrote:One was playing 3 at the back and as a consequence of that Alves up on the wing.
Second mistake was taking Xavi off.
And we are just pathetic are set pieces now without Abidal and Pique.

1. I couldn't agree more.

2. I think Pep wanted to rest him for Tuesday but very good point.

3. Completely agree with what you said but would also like to add that we are very bad at taking advantage from set pieces. Our main opponents all concede a lot of freekicks to us but when do we make any of them count?

alexjanosik wrote:

bazinga wrote:I told a friend yesterday that we need a new forward. Now that could either be Villa coming back better than ever before, or someone new.

This match showed our serious depleted resources up front. And who knows, maybe the same will happen against the fifty banks of four Chelsea will undoubtedly line up with. It's going to be a rather disappointing end to the season, simply because it is finally getting hard for Messi to shoulder the entire attacking burden himself.

Spot on.In games like these,Messi is not getting the best chances. because he is heavily marked.But when he so heavily marked we need our other forwards to step up and exploit the space.
Last season we had Villa and Pedro.This season we have no one.

That really is the key to everything and all the rest is secondary to it.

BarcaKizz wrote:
We've got Chelsea now, much bigger match for me... and I think Pep prioritised it too.

Yes but that 99% will be pure parking the bus which was our bane even in our best days and now we are some notches below that. Hence I am not sure how many of my fellow Barca fans are genuinely optimistic and how many are trying to put on a brave face in times of adversity.

For the first time in three years, JD, I'm not optimistic of a result against Chelsea.

If we take our chances, we will win. But not sure about whether we will take them or not.

I think the Xavi chance was a very good example of how messi drags players onto him creating space for others. Ramos ran toward messi, xavi ran into the space, and messi got the pass off. It would have been the perfect goal given how messi was heavily marked, but our finishing has come back to haunt us.

It's funny because in the last games we have played against madrid, we were (unusually) clinical in front of goal. Something felt off about this match and I have no idea what it is

shinigami99 wrote:I think the Xavi chance was a very good example of how messi drags players onto him creating space for others. Ramos ran toward messi, xavi ran into the space, and messi got the pass off. It would have been the perfect goal given how messi was heavily marked, but our finishing has come back to haunt us.

It's funny because in the last games we have played against madrid, we were (unusually) clinical in front of goal. Something felt off about this match and I have no idea what it is

Nah I knew when barcelona announced their attacking lineup, that its going to backfire. Caused a a bit of havoc for us, but it was missing natural goalscorers.
I was impressed by Tello tho, besides a couple of missed sitters, he gave alot of trouble to Arbeloa only using his speed. He should work more on his technique with the ball and he could become a very dangerous player against any side.

the time I saw the line up i told my friends we're gonna concede by a corner kick...

Why Pique didn't play again?

billy_gr wrote:the time I saw the line up i told my friends we're gonna concede by a corner kick...

Why Pique didn't play again?

Pep probably gave him a bit of rest against Chelsea clash, wise choice by Pep tbf.

Nameless wrote:

billy_gr wrote:the time I saw the line up i told my friends we're gonna concede by a corner kick...

Why Pique didn't play again?

Pep probably gave him a bit of rest against Chelsea clash, wise choice by Pep tbf.

he wasn't even tired...
he didn't play against Chelsea in S Bridge