Milan - Barça. Today at 20:45

we are ridiculous. milan are barely pressing and we are a disaster ready to happen

I'm so sick of Milan. I want them as far from the Champions League as possible for next year.ughhh

We need to go into defense a lot faster. This is a frustrating game

we don't have a plan at all for this game.

Good point I think, we will take them at home.

Conclusions from this game:

1- Tata chooses his players because of their fame, not their merit. He leaves Bartra out when he is like 10 times a better defender than Mascherano, doesn't play Cesc who is like twice in better form than Iniesta, doesn't play Pedro who is better at park the bus teams than Alexis, although that was the right call considering Alexis great form.

2- We are rubbish vs. big teams, just like last year. Unable to create anything vs. them.

3- If nothing changes, there's no way we win the champions league, neither the clasicos or the games vs. Atletico. But we can win the league beating the small scrubs.

We played like pensioners. So slow.

Yeah, very slow. It's like we are stuck with some old system, that has to be followed. Nevertheless, we will win this Milan at home and take the group.

Masch made one mistake which was expected after injury, but then again now he is back. He improved when the game continued.

We do have the clasico this weekend, so I hope the players were preserving their energy for the clasico, or if they perform like that we could be level on points end of this weekend in the league.

to be fair to you guys, we defended with 10 men, basically 2 fullbacks with Kaka and Birsa lol

Is it too bad to hope we go through the group 1st but flop completely in defense so Tata realizes we need a CB?

Typical Barcelona mistakes. No wdith because adriano and alves kept coming in. All milan had to do was pack the middle. Noone stretching the defence horizontally as well. Everyone was deep. Neymar should have at least tried to pin the cb back after Abate kept pocketing him. Messi was basically an AM. No runners behind the defence. Tata is looking clueless atm and I expect Madrid to win the next classico tbh. Now people are seeing just how special Pep is/was.

I think most posters in this forum already knew how special Pep is. Barrilete, we do need a CB to kick Mascherano out of Barça.

Only if you think Puyol will remain fit... which he won't. We need a CB regardless.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Only if you think Puyol will remain fit... which he won't. We need a CB regardless.

Then we need 2 CBs, one to kick out Mascherano, the other to kick out Puyol.

I think Masche is more than fine as a back-up CB. Today he played badly, as I said and as Pique did too, but he did come back from injury and Masche has always been a player that get rusty quickly.

I am completely baffled by the Cesc for Alexis sub. What was that supposed to achieve?

Mascherano is a scrub and I dont see any defence for him today.

Other than Tata had no business starting him over Bartra to begin with.

Mascherano had time to do anything, his result was smack it into Pique at chest level from a few meters away and Robinho right there...I dunno if I should laugh or cry at that.

But what he did after that was more criminal. You have fcked up, Pique is now 1 v 1 with Kaka after Robinho played the pass...what is your first thought? Come towards the ball and giving the passing angle for Robinho to run behind....I defiantly did not laugh at that.

Pique was pretty bad all game also, looking slow and confused...but still, no error like that.

The rest of the game was more or less what I expected. We had a few chances we missed and Messi's final passes were off from the start tot he end, so perhaps on another day we could have won. But still, not good enough and we are not at the level required to blow anyone great away.

I have no problem with Tata's starting line up, other than Bartra and Mascherano. His tactics and his subs, I did not understand.

Swapping Messi for Alexis doesnt do much for me either. For one, there is no space in behind for Alexis, only the counter attacks. So, your relying on his movement inside the box to keep the defender distracted for some time for Messi, Neymar or Iniesta to dribble. But the 5 man narrow Milan midfield line is the first thing we need to penetrate and we could not do that.

If your going to put a "striker" in Alexis, for me, you dont put Messi on the right because he will be narrow anyway. You put someone else on the right (Pedro perhaps) and Messi as a 10. When you put Messi, you then ask Dani Alves to cover the entire flank, but he doesnt overlap at this point, so obviously he will cross (which actually he did fairly well today) which isnt going to work for us real often. On top of that, it forces Dani Alves to really commit to that attack and leaves space for Robinho to drift into on the counter attack and drag Pique into areas he doesnt like going into.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:I think Masche is more than fine as a back-up CB. Today he played badly, as I said and as Pique did too, but he did come back from injury and Masche has always been a player that get rusty quickly.

A fine back up against most La Liga sides.

Any team with top quality, or even near it (old Robinho and Kaka) then no, he isnt even good enough for that.

His accidents are just regular mistakes, they are often fatal, plus his small mistakes get punished more often against this quality. He gets attracted to the ball like a moth to a flame, top players read that.

Don't understand why Mascherano gets all the blame when Piqué was equally shit. Besides Mascherano won more balls than Piqué in important areas.

Btw, Alves is hurting our game a lot. Why is he coming inside all the time? Or why is he acting as a winger then? He should overlap instead of being there and not go to play as an extra CM.

Because we only let in 1 goal and it was 100% his fault.

He has to get the blame for the goal which means half of the result.

Pique was crap and you (and I did) can say that too, but he didnt cost us a goal, or make an error which should of cost us a goal (if not for someone saving him for example).

danyjr wrote:Don't understand why Mascherano gets all the blame when Piqué was equally shit. Besides Mascherano won more balls than Piqué in important areas.

It's difficult to react when a Professional player from a Top team clears the ball against your chest when he was almost under no pressure from opposition.

Dani Alves hasnt overlapped since like year 2 or 3, thats not his game anymore.

He used to overlap and Xavi would play that diagonal ball for him, but teams quickly clocked on to it and he stopped making that run and eventually stopped overlapping.

Also, Alexis got the ball on the wing already, not on the inside so there is nowhere to go. Only when Messi is on the right could he overlap, but as I said, its not his game anymore and he much prefer to play 1-2's with Messi in the ending coming towards the box.

danyjr wrote:Don't understand why Mascherano gets all the blame when Piqué was equally shit. Besides Mascherano won more balls than Piqué in important areas.

Even mascherano thinks it was his fault

Mascherano: "El equipo, lamentablemente, ha tenido que sufrir un nuevo error mío. Me duele por el resultado, porque en partidos tan importantes como éste, yo no me puedo permitir este tipo de errores"

Mascherano: "The team, unfortunately, had to suffer a new mistake by me. It hurts because of the result, because in games as important as this one I cannot allow myself to commit this kind of mistake".

I'm not talking about the goal, which was Mascherano's fault. And I know this is not how we judge players but apart from that incident, Piqué was equally as bad as Mascherano, if not worse.

Yeah I largely agree with that. They were both awful. I think Martino made a bet on the partnership that has worked for him well in most games so far but he brought back Masche too early. Bartra had the form to deserve a spot, even if he lacked the experience.

The Franchise wrote:I am completely baffled by the Cesc for Alexis sub. What was that supposed to achieve?

I totally agree with this as well. I think the point was that there is no one else that can play the #9 role for us aside of Alexis. He clearly does not trust Pedro there and doesn't seem to see Neymar in that role either for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. Cesc has the benefit of experience playing F9 so he went for him, but this could be the reason that Martino wants to bring a 'Larsson' in the winter.