Wasn't able to see it as per usual for CL games, but looks like one to forget.

Better next time eh?

danyjr wrote:

The Franchise wrote:Mascherano getting taken to schooled by 17 year olds..he get worse everytime I see him.

Mascherano was not at fault. It was an easy ball Xavi should have cleared, simple as that.

c

Firstly, yes he was at fault. He was in a poor poor starting position. If Xavi didnt make that error and a Celtic player simply flicked it on the same would of happened. Obviously Xavi should of cleared it, however that doesnt erase the fact Mascherano is poor positionally.

Second, that isnt even the thing im talking about. How about when he got totally done for speed and basically had to foul (which wasnt called)? Or when he did foul in injury time after getting done again?

Frozen plastic Russian pitch next

Expect more injuries for this one.

We could have qualified to the next round today.

I think we lost the 1 v 1 battles we had, which in the end is why we didnt score. We had chances, some bad luck, some great saves but overall we failed in the 1 v 1 and because of that was forced into looking a little predictable.

Messi even went wide as to try and win those 1 v 1 battles.

But Pedro for some reason didnt try to attack in the 1 v 1, Wanyama stopped Iniesta consistently, Messi couldnt really do it, Alexis rarely got the chance to and doubt he would of anyways, Villa couldnt when he come on, Cesc couldnt...we circulate the ball to create time for someone, we couldnt use that time other than to cross really. Put in some okay crosses but nobody reached them.

It is what it is, basically got to move on to the next one, I arent that upset by this one really. In the grand scheme of things, its not that big a deal.

I thought the players, mainly Iniesta, Messi and Pedro were less sharp than they usually are.

I really think there is absolutely nothing Barca can do to avoid conceding set piece goals, unless we overhaul iniesta, messi, pedro, xavi and co and get more taller and stronger players (which wont happen of course)

All tall teams are guaranteed at least 1 goal when they face us, Its so sad

gondov wrote:I really think there is absolutely nothing Barca can do to avoid conceding set piece goals, unless we overhaul iniesta, messi, pedro, xavi and co and get more taller and stronger players (which wont happen of course)

All tall teams are guaranteed at least 1 goal when they face us, Its so sad

Agree, but it doesnt help that even our defenders are small. That is avoidable.

We dont have to have 5 feet 8 centerback Mascherano..we used to have 5'10 with great timing and leaping Puyol....we dont have to have physically weak 6 foot Bartra, we used to have 6 '3 Pique...we dont have to have 5 foot6 Alba, we used to have 6 ' 2 Abidal.

I agree we are always going to struggle to some degree, but it doesnt help that even our usual tall positions are now small.

Also used to have Henry/Ibra at the front post...gone now too.

Anyway.. Spartak has now become a must win game.

Celtic will prolly win all their matches and from this evidence we are capable of losing all our remaining matches.

Nah, dont overreact. Celtic wont play this defensively vs other teams, they will open up and thats how they become very beatable. The other teams will score goals vs them, I dont doubt that.

Also, we can and will play better in other games.

The Franchise wrote:Firstly, yes he was at fault. He was in a poor poor starting position. If Xavi didnt make that error and a Celtic player simply flicked it on the same would of happened. Obviously Xavi should of cleared it, however that doesnt erase the fact Mascherano is poor positionally.

Second, that isnt even the thing im talking about. How about when he got totally done for speed and basically had to foul (which wasnt called)? Or when he did foul in injury time after getting done again?

Since when do you have to mark a player when your team has the possession of the ball? Xavi should have intercepted that ball, simples. There's not anything to argue.

On the other occasion, the team had pushed forward and the Celtic man was fresh and quick.

I didnt say mark him, but if you cant see he is in a poor position I dont know what to say.

Here as question, for what reason does he have to be that far forward of him?

Basic defending..your supposed to expect the worst. He isnt in a position to effect the play and he isnt getting any benefit for being in that position. Sure as hell other defenders wouldnt of been there, but goalside of the striker.

Stop diverted to Xavi, we have already established its his error. However, that doesnt mean you cannot point to other things here.

Whats the team pushing forward got to do with being burnt for speed? Yeah, he was left alone to deal with a striker....and?

If you're 1 vs 1 against a player at the start of a counter attack against you, you either try to play him offside or play him onside and then chase him.

Please next time, if ever you're on a pitch try chasing a fast and fresh player with your tired legs. I've done that and there isn't much you can do apart from above or committing a foul.

It has become cool to bash Mascherano in this forum these days. As if the rest of your players were superb and he is the one at fault for your miserable display: Alba at fault for first goal, Barta screwed up communication, Song gave the ball away in dangerous positions and should have been sent off, Xavi error lead to second goal, Alves was pretty much useless and your attackers didn't bite at all.

Didn't create many opportunities from what I saw (till the 60th minute) and what we had, we didn't take. Too many weak or inaccurate shots. I think we only got one shot on target in the first half. Pretty poor. Great possession but if you cannot create chances then how are you suppose to score goals?
Also noticed that pretty much that Celtic team was taller than most of our players (pretty much Valdes, Song and Barta stood up to that team...). They had the advantage over us with defending set peices and also attacking set pieces.
Song is really pissing me off now. Not only did he concede that unneccesary foul that gave him a yellow but he is not playing his DM role good enough. Noticed this for a while now and I think someone else picked this up as well. When we lose possession, he is dropping deep and almost every single time, he is positioning himself as a centre back. Needs to cut off attacks early and win the ball back preferably in midfield.
Mascherano was terrible. Hesitates whether to play the offside trap or not.

A night to forget and hopefully we will bounce back on the weekend...

What this match proved today was:
We heavily rely on Messi which is well known already.
Song still proving why we should of have never bought him.
Buscuit really changes our game, when he is missing it is noticeable

Donuts wrote:What this match proved today was:
We heavily rely on Messi which is well known already.
Song still proving why we should of have never bought him.
Buscuit really changes our game, when he is missing it is noticeable

Busquests is so underrated as a DM. In fact, I reckon he is the greatest DM in the game today. Shuts an attack quickly when the opposition have the ball... Song doesn't, like Mascherano (when he plays his occasional games as DM, drops deep, relying on someone else to shut the attack down...

Also it was interesting to see Messi staying on right wing and Villa being the main striker for a quiet along period of time.
lastly, I truly hate Sanchez lately hope he stops being a bad player.

Masche also had a couple of good actions Dani, he did put in a couple of key tackles, overall I don't think he was very bad.

This was essentially deja vu last season's games against Cheslea. It's the British way of playing against us. Hardly the end of the world since we're still top of the group and will probably get at least 4 points from the next two games.

Wanyama and Forster put in the performances of their lives against us.

How can someone defend Masch for that goal and question if someone's ever played football based on it... Yes, Dani has played football and his knowledge is superb. Xavi made a mistake, yes, but Masch was also out of position. Deal with it. He does it often.

BC, making a few tackles in games like this isn't impressive though. Most important thing is not to make huge mistakes which cost the game. He made a mistake there, simple as that.

Not to say I blame Masch for the loss, but because of that his game wasn't great.

I didn't say he had a great game, all I said was that he wasn't awful. To be honest I don't think Pique or Bartra would've done much better had they been in his situation, he couldn't have anticipated Xavi of all people misplacing a pass like that. Not to say he wasn't off position, which he was, but it is shared responsibility.

Also completely agreed that questioning Dani's football knowledge is nonsense.

Masch was not the ONLY one at fault. People won't like it but Xavi should have done better there. So I would say Xavi and Masch were at fault, but Xavi is Xavi so no grudges there eh? I agree though, that Masch has been horrid in many recent games and its actually interesting that the only clean sheet I remember us having so far was when he wasn't playing (that 5-0 away win). He's probably going to be shipped off at the end of this season no doubt. This should increase our urgency to get a CB(s)

Well that's the thing that pisses me off about Masch.

He's generally pretty good overall- he puts in good tackles, he recovers well, he's decent at bringing it out of the back... But he makes these huge errors that end up costing us a goal- and you can't have that. He might be decent other than that one error, but that's the thing about defense, you can't have that one glaring error- you have to prevent that and hope anything else you can't clean up will be handled by the keeper.

There have been more than a few huge errors that have cost us goals from mistakes Masch has made. That's not to say others aren't at blame for the same thing *looks at Valdes*.

That being said, today's mistake was shared between Xavi and Masch. I didn't watch the game, but saw that (ridiculous) goal. Awful from both Xavi and Masch really, just awful.

Well I did say both should be blamed, whereas Danyjr was saying his Argentine bro was faultless again.

And BC, indeed, not sure Pique or Bartra would have done better. I would guess yes personally (Bartra dealt with a similar ball to Samaras... may have been different, hard to remember), but its silly hypothesising, they could have done the same thing.

Still a mistake is a mistake.

We still should have won though. We just didn't take chances and were ineffective.

Villa should have started as Alexis is useless against buses (even more damn useless than usual). He's worst on our team at working it tight spaces. Villa has excellent finishing at least.

Should have brought Tello on earlier and also swapped Pedro and Alexis a bit as they were having no luck.

Pique was a waste of a sub and an insult to Bartra I thought. He made a stupid characteristic Bartra mistake, but I don't see him making another one after that.

Let's not forget 'El Enano' (the dwarf) marking Wanyama at the backpost for some reason... thats really what cost us.

Stupid tactical setup at a set-piece and if he's going to be there then he has to do better than that... It was pathetic... Like a 12 year old boy flapping around. Don't think he was even looking at the ball.

Alba in the air is about as useful as a wooden frying pan.

No worries, we are topping the group and have two easy matches left. Celtic won't win both matches also. With 3 points, we'll be leaders. Only pitty is that we could have given some playing time to non starters if we were to lose (Tello, Deulo, JDS etc).

There's no way someone can say Mascherano was not partially at fault for the second goal: when there's an aerial ball, the CB has to cover the guy that challenges the aerial ball, and he wasn't covering properly. Obviously, the bigger mistake is from Xavi for not clearing, but Mascherano has part of the blame too.

Alba terrible in the air for the first goal... but what are you gonna do, we knew he was terrible. He is short, but he needs to try, he surely can jump more than 5 cm!

Also, you guys are overeacting about how terrible we are with set pieces. I only recall two goals from corners this season against us, not worrying compared to the general amount of goals we are conceding.

Whoscored.com also says that we are statistically strong in defending set pieces, so this means that statistically we concede less than the average team. The problem is that we are very weak avoiding opponents to create chances and in aerial duels, and weak in avoiding individual mistakes:
http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/65/Show/Spain-Barcelona

Bartra had a solid game. Yes, he made a small mistake when he left that ball to Valdes, but more than the mistake, I was very impressed by his reaction: he was super fast in recovering position and blocked Samaras shot with a lot of strength and determination. That's a great hope as Bartra used to be a soft defender, and he showed just the opposite there. I hope Mascherano hits the bench hard. He is probably our worst player currently.

Also, glad to see Alves playing at good level again! Didn't mess up defensively, was energetic and even managed two good crosses out of 20, which is better than usual.