Little width, crappy finishing, subpar movement in midfield, feels like last year.

Pique and Alves were boss, Varane also.
Iniesta was good but we had no presence on the left.
Messi, clearly drunk, the most dangerous again.
Pedro doing his best Sanchez impersonation.

Feels like a missed oportunity.

sportsczy wrote:Barca has their style and so does Madrid. Neither deviates. But both do it very well. Nothing wrong with that.

You only see the true colors of these teams when the game is open. Nobody plays Barca and Madrid openly these days. Most everyone sits back... that's why i think these games are unique. You have teams going at each other that aren't used to having teams going at them.

Didnt say anything is wrong, both teams are doing what they do,im just saying its predictable. Not anyones fault, thats just what happens when you play 8 times a year the same opponent.

Like I said, sometimes referee gives you and sometimes they take from you..

This game should really be the end of Iniesta in the wing, Messi was multiple times looking to pass in there, just to find nobody home.

Harmonica wrote:This game should really be the end of Iniesta in the wing, Messi was multiple times looking to pass in there, just to find nobody home.

Made it far too difficult on him, I agree. Its even harder to dribble when you have no dangerous pass options on.

Thing is, Cesc scored, so he is going to keep playing and Iniesta is playing so great this season he obviously must play. Alas, it will likely continue.

Ridiculous to bring on Alexis instead of Villa.

I also agree with that.

Villa should of gone on and should of gone on the left.

Cesc was roaming wherever the space took him, he got his goal towards the right, Messi naturally drifts there, Dani Alves was coming up...Villa on the left, with Alba....Essien and Ozil would of been overworked defensively.

I wish we had a coach.

Barcelona missed a great opportunity to take a considerable advantage in Bernabéu but I think you showed Madrid too much respect and there's all to play for in the second leg for both teams. I wouldn't call 1-1 an advantage knowing the Madrid team that will be playing in Camp Nou will be better than this one and they will more than likely score at least one, as they have been in the past few encounters. Despite all that let's not forget Madrid scored a goal that shouldn't have been a chance in the first place and a wrong offside call on Messi which would have put the game to bed.

Xavi should of buried it when he had the chance, no keeper bad finishing.
Pedro should of not pulled a messi and just blasted it vs keeper 1v1
Linesman should really get his eyes checked
we were lucky Ronaldo didn't score his sitter and missed horribly.
Goal against us should not of counted
Villa should play on the wing and we should stop playing Pedro/Sanchez for a while and depend on Cuenca/Tello more, after todays performance neither Pedro or Sanchez deserve to start.

Alexis did nothing wrong, actually he created a chance when he pressured Alonso in the midfield and won it. Then made a pass for Messi who was offside.

He shouldnt of played over Villa, but today didnt prove or disprove anything about him.

Pedro did alright minus that chance, he went silent in the 2nd half though was rightly taken out.

I just wish Tello was in the squad, it was a perfect game for him. Essien is so bad at defending speed and running in behind..not once did we test him directly with it.

Anyone else felt like Pedro should've been testing the line more often? I felt like too often he didn't make runs he was supposed to make and the few times he did something came from it.

Btw we've mentioned Alves defensive contribution but I would also highlight his offensive as he pushed forward quite often. More importantly, though, CR7 was forced to track back quite a lot because of this, keeping him less involved in the chance creating.

Im really starting to get frustrated we dont use Villa

It's just frustrating. With the injuries and suspensions they had, I really expected the team to perform better.

Well we had chances, but we didn't take them. It is very frustrating that we couldn't give them a solid beating with their injuries. This is not a good result, and not necessarily a fair one, given the 2nd half we put out.

However, nothing is going to change by playing the blame game. If the players cannot step up at the Camp Nou and bury everything that comes their way, then we simply don't deserve to progress. It's as simple as that.

I would have really wanted to see Villa as well. It would have given our play some more width. While Cesc+Iniesta has worked a lot this season, I feel that having our customary 2 proper wingers/forwards+Messi should have been tried to see if we could exploited their frail defence.

Jack Daniels wrote:Iniesta is wasted on the wings. He always tends to go in the center when in possession.

Essien is having a lax time out there as no one is making runs in his side. It also lessens Messi's options to make a through ball.

Excellent point. What pained me so much is whenever Iniesta got the ball he was sublime with his close control as well as his passing but for large durations of the game he just drifted out of it and could not participate. We would be on a completely different level if Iniesta could have played like that for the entire 90 minutes. Our tactical system was more exposed today than it has been all these days. Alba isn't found on his flank. There is no forward/winger on his side to support him. Fabregas is great running towards the center and releasing a final pass or scoring but with him in the center we can't dominate the midfield like we used to. The maestro Xavi now is beginning to show his age. He cannot cover that much ground that fast day in day out as he did say in the 2009-10 season and that makes a big difference. I now understand clearly why the likes of dani were not convinced with this system even when we were winning comfortably. Both sides missed lots of chances though and depending on who had taken his chance the game could have changed. Most strangely Messi seemed like he didn't have enough heart for this game which is so hard to digest. I have to acknowlege that C.Ronaldo on the other hand showed a lot of enthusiasm and fight especially in the first half. On the positive side Pinto played better than I expected him to. Our best players were probably Pique and Alves in that order. Busquets I thought was reasonable but could have been better. The same goes for Pedro who missed that heartbreaking chance from our perspective. Puyol shows his age of course but then at the last minute he shows that he still has his Tarzan moments. My big worry though is our tiki taka as it stands today has become much easier to crack that it was a few years ago and Tito and Jordi have their work cut out now if we are to win the UCL this year. Let me end with a big positive which everyone is anyway saying. Your Varane can be something very special. He had an awesome game. It's not impossible that he becomes the best that we have seen since Alessandro Nesta although its early days. Still at 19 years if you can play a game of this importance in such a cultured and calm manner while doing more than you are expected to, one has to tip his hat to him.

I couldn't watch but I just finished watching the first half after downloading it (which took forever). It will be too late by the time I finish the second half download so I'll have to watch that tomorrow.

Can someone tell me why we are pushing Iniesta out left to accomodate Fab who plays like sh*t? Particularly in this game. Pls tell me he went off in the second half.

As someone mentioned, Essien had nothing of note to do all game. Iniesta had to come inside to compensate for Fab's incompetence and then the only player on the left was Alba.

IT'S FREAKING ESSIEN, PUT A FORWARD THERE AND LET HIM GIVE ESSIEN HELL. Villa needs to start the next leg ffs and put Andres back in the midfield. The guy has magic feet and doesn't give it away every 10 seconds like Fab.

Also from the looks of the first half, it was another Messi walking performance. Only occasionally pressing.

I will reserve more judgement till I watch the second half but for now it's ridiculous we can't beat this Madrid side. We are so much better, but tactically we are not playing to our strengths (AND their obvious weaknesses).

Good shout with Tello, Dani. He would be an even better alternative to Villa here I feel.

cesc scored the goal though so no he wasn't subbed off
we didn't make subs till late 75th minute or so I may be wrong but it took a hell of a time to get a sub in.
Our first half was rather bad, our only real chance was Xavi's free kick, second half was a different story and we had terrible luck, whether it was linesman or stupid misses.

So because he scored we will continue to destroy ourselves and continue with Iniesta on the wing.

Kill me

Well...our schedule in February is going to be insanely rough with allot of really tough matches played very close to each other. So, players are bound to start playing more with rotations being very important

CBarca wrote:So because he scored we will continue to destroy ourselves and continue with Iniesta on the wing.

Kill me

nah im saying i am sorta glad we didn't sub him out because he seems to be the only one who got a shot on target.

Cesc was our best player in the second half after Xavi.Deserved to stay on for the performance,but he went off near the end.

Donuts wrote:
Our first half was rather bad, our only real chance was Xavi's free kick

They had more chances in the first half but I would say this comment is an exaggeration. Iniesta had that wonderful Laudrup like pass from which we should have scored. I can't remember for sure but Varane's goal line clearance happened in the first half, right? There were a few other chances as well. They had more and were the better team but its not like we weren't in the game at all.

Fair result.
As I’ve said before, we’ve been really forgiving these days. Had the boys been more clinical our games should have ended 10-0 or something. Of course with Madrid you can’t create as many chances, so you have to be lethal. We know Iniesta isn’t a killer, Pedro missed that shot and finally, no matter how well he played – wich he did IMO - we brought Alexis in who can’t score against my local team. FFS let Villa go to Arsenal. It’s painful to see him on the bench in games like this. Players of his class shine in these matches

Not a fair result. Refs were shit in favour of Madrid, like usual. That offside to Messi, Carvalho handball, the corner that led to the goal, and most important, many fouls and yellows that werent given.

Although it's a good result, amb I'm crushed. I need a lift.

Hoped the second leg was next week.

Bring Villa back, and move Iniesta to center. Period.

What's that image supposed to mean?