Less possession. let other team attack and you will face less parked buses then. catch them on counter attacks. what is your Plan B opinions?

If you ask me how we do less possession. My answer is bench Xavi and let crazy things begin. no back pass anymore everybody do forward passes do more risk and lose it. result: less possession

This nonesense again.

Less possession.............

If we gave the ball away more, they would have had more chances to counter attack...thats it.

If Celtic dont want to come out from their goal, they arent going to.

Does anyone play football anymore?

Bottom line. If every game was like the Celtic one, we would actually win more often than not.

Play exactly the same way as we've been doing the last 5 years. Win 75% of matches.Put Pique up front the last 15 minutes in a park the bus match you are not winning. Titles will come.

Yeah, the problem vs. Celtic was not the attack, it was defence. We don't conceed, we win the game. We scored one, and the normal thing would have been to score another (2 posts, 2-3 clear chances missed). No problem with our game.

buy a tall striker

The Franchise wrote:
If we gave the ball away more, they would have had more chances to counter attack...thats it.

I think there would be no counter attack because Barca would be in their own half. not in opposition half with all 10 players. if Barca see that opposite team attack more they will be ready to defend.

Possession against a parked bus team is the most useless thing. just risk more. send the ball to dangerous zones more. who needs side and back passes vs bus team. and if you are losing its wasting your time. that back pass in 94th minute played with my nerves. After that back pass referee finished the game. why you pass it back when you have only 10 seconds

So both teams would play anti football? Fun.

If we have players in our half, how do you think we are going to score? Counter attacks? How do you counter attack a team where the players arent out of position?

I think your just frustrated because we lost in this way, becaue logically there isnt anything much wrong with they style we use in these games and there is no logic and even lesser proof to suggest your idea is more likely to work.

So, both teams would sit in their own half with a striker in the opposing area, shooting the ball up and down? That's the plan B?

I dont understand this Plan B obsession.
The way I saw it,we played just fine.We dominated them,created enough chances to win the game.But we missed many chances and Celtic scored from the 2chances they had(if u can even call them chances as one was from a corner and the other was a GK clearance).
This was very reminiscent of the Chelsea game.We dominate,miss chance after chance and they score from their only chances.Its a freak result.No need to read more into it.
I think we have gotten very good at beating parked buses compared to the first 2 years under Pep.Then we barely used to create chances.
Now we have gotten tactically better and create a lot of chances( for a parked bus that is).Just have to finish the chances.

So no we dont need a plan B,if that means getting a target man or giving up on our possession game.
Tito already tried a plan B against Celtic.He put Messi on the right on the second half.Messi should have gone around the outside more instead of cutting into the center all the time.
But yeah plan B means intelligent tactics and not nonsense like a target man or give up on our possession game.

How about this Plan B: Hummels and Thiago Silva.

Guaranteed to work

Anyways I agree with what's been said. We don't need a plan b, it's a frustrating loss because we could've had a couple goals and we didn't due to poor finishing and a great GK, but it's also true that it seems that every time a team parks the bus against us their GK is the MOTM. Chelsea deja vu all over again. 3/5 games we would've won, but were unlucky. I'd rather the team experience this again in group stages than a knock out.

You don't need a plan B but you need to stop being so predictable. And get some aerial presence, defensively at least.

Less possession...

With our defense as it is currently?

BTW why do you guys seem to think there is a magical fix against parked buses? That a plan B, or less predictability will work?

Teams that defend deep with 10 defenders are ALWAYS going to be very hard to get through- no matter how predictable you are or how many different plans you have. 10 players defending deep makes it hard on any plan, or any situation.

IMO Barca have the best players and the best style to break down these parked buses, it's all a matter of being clinical with your chances.

so whenever Barcelona lose a game once in a while, this talk goals all over again !!

You can't win every single match... you can't be effective in every single match..

Barca had a couple of very good chances yesterday, they didn't went in (post/bar, saved by Celtic's Gk...) get over it... Celtic defended well but we had chance, some great one too.. we weren't effective like in the past few games that it...

Plan B? lol

We had to lose a game and I'm happy we did in a meaningless match... A win against Spartak in 2 weeks from now and will secure the 1st spot (Celtic won't win against Benfica)...

From ZonalMarking

Barcelona weren’t terrible, but unquestionably missed strong, reliable players in defensive areas. A defensive ‘triangle’ of Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol and Sergio Busquets wouldn’t have allowed Celtic to break so dangerously, and would have made Barcelona less vulnerable at set-pieces. It’s another game when their refusal to sign a standard centre-back looks dodgy, with Song still yet to convince.

It’s easy to question their lack of a plan B, a tall central striker – but after some excellent late rallies this season by sticking to their short passing approach, it’s an unreasonable criticism. Instead, they simply didn’t play their own style well enough - it’s one of those matches where Iniesta, while extraordinarily able to come up with key contributions on the biggest occasions, didn’t show his class against individually inferior opponents. Pedro couldn’t get past his full-back regularly enough to receive balls in behind the defence, and while Messi was very dangerous with his use of the space near the right, Celtic were happy to see him there, rather than on the edge of the box.

well explained....

We should rather than reducing possession play more direct football. i.e- Pique to Busquets to Xavi to Pedro instead of Pique to Mascherano to Puyol to Iniesta to Xavi to Pedro. But its just my opinion.

So, now Tito's Barça is way too much undirect?

Wasn't everyone saying that we were so much direct that under Pep some weeks ago?

What happens is that we are, and always have been, quite direct when the opponent lets us be direct. Either because it's an attacking opponent or because we manage to brake their bus once or twice early.

8/10 teams play like Celtic vs. us, but most of them receive a goal or two in the first half or can't manage that level of defending until the end. Vs. Celtic at Glasgow we just didn't move the ball fast enough and missed our chances + Celtic are a quite a physical side who was also extremely motivated because they were playing home, vs. the best team in the world, in their 125th anniversary, so they could keep it up until the 85th minute. Not enough time to score two or three goals.

That's attacking wise, defenisvely, we were just too weak to concede 2 in 2 Celtic attacks.

If we stop doing that sort of "time-pass" we do and move the ball quick enough through direct football, it would only benefit us. As we make more and more short passes our defense begins to come forward and results in poor reaction to the counter-attack by the opposing teams. This is where the problem arises.

That being said I'm not 100% against buying a tall striker. Just not a world class one that would demand playing time. Someone that can play for us and know his place in the team: to come in and act as a target man when teams park the bus against us. This would inevitably make defenses less narrow because they would have to mark the FBs from crossing dangerous balls to him. Can you guys come up with any suitable names?

If Pique were better at heading I'd suggest using him instead

BarrileteCosmico wrote:How about this Plan B: Hummels and Thiago Silva.

should but your busy buying all the sanchezes and ibra's(not saying hes bad) over the world

BarrileteCosmico wrote:That being said I'm not 100% against buying a tall striker. Just not a world class one that would demand playing time. Someone that can play for us and know his place in the team: to come in and act as a target man when teams park the bus against us. This would inevitably make defenses less narrow because they would have to mark the FBs from crossing dangerous balls to him. Can you guys come up with any suitable names?

If Pique were better at heading I'd suggest using him instead

I agre with you totally. Some say Pique is enough, but i can't seam to recall when was the last time Pique scored a decisive goal and save us?

Because contrary to popular belief, Piqué is not an aerial threat. Defensively he is good in air but directing your header is a whole other story, which he sucks at by the way (in fact everybody bar Messi, Thiago and Puyol do in Barcelona, while the former two are not tall enough to be an aerial threat).

You dont have to score from headers to be a problem.

I would rather not waste money or time on buying a tall striker for basically 10-20 minutes a game, but only 1 game per 20 or 30. Its a waste.

Pique size alone causes a different look, he doesnt even have to score when he is there. If you were to whip a cross in to him, the defender will have to fight to win the header, if they win it over Pique it would be a struggle and they wont clear it effectively.

Not many strikers score that many headed goals, but the problems they cause, the disorganisation they cause is a bigger worry for defences.

The whole have a big striker thing is basically because if we crossed it, our current crop not only wont win headers, the bigger, taller centerbacks will win them so easily they can send their headers 30m clear of danger. If anyone who matches there size was there, they would win some, lose some, but many of those they win, they will be clearing it far less often out of the danger zone.

How about not pressing them in their half? Instead let them have the ball up until the end of their half and then press.

They shouldn't be able to rush to PTB as soon as Barca get the ball.

everything is fine, we just need a more stable defense.