Milan - Barça. Today at 20:45

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.

Am I the only one who thinks that, while there are areas where the team needs to improve, it wasn't that bad of a performances or atleast compared to last season? Barca actually created 4-5 great chances while at the same time restriced Milan to only 2 good chances.

Neymar was fantastic when he played it, I would question Tata's vision if he didnt like his game there.

I have a bad feeling, he didnt want an upset Cesc because he would have been left on the bench for the entire game.

I hope not.

And yeah, I would like a 9 in games like today, but if its Messi to the right then I dont know how much it helps. If we play with a 9, for me Messi needs to play as a 10 and we keep two wide players who play wide and remove a midfielder.

harhar11 wrote:Am I the only one who thinks that, while there are areas where the team needs to improve, it wasn't that bad of a performances or atleast compared to last season? Barca actually created 4-5 great chances while at the same time restriced Milan to only 2 good chances.

No, we did have more chances. On other day we may have scored more.

Adriano should of done better, probably should of scored. Neymar went just wide when he might of scored, he had another 2 shots he is capable of troubling the goalie with, Iniesta had a very good chance and a couple others like Dani Alves deep cross to Messi.

The Franchise wrote:And yeah, I would like a 9 in games like today, but if its Messi to the right then I dont know how much it helps. If we play with a 9, for me Messi needs to play as a 10 and we keep two wide players who play wide and remove a midfielder.

He did play like a 10 sometimes. Had the discretion to go to the middle of the pitch or to the wing when he thought it was appropriate, I think.

I also agree with harhar that on another day Alexis, Iniesta or Adriano might have finished their chances well. Of course, on another day Mexes might have scored his header too or Robinho not missed his second golden chance. While we had clear chances, so did they, so I wouldn't brush it off as '4 times out of 5 we would have scored those, today was just not our day'.

Yes, but when he moves middle he leaves the right to one person, a fullback. Which I think is wrong.

Yeah, Pique was as bad as Mascherano and has been worse defender the games they've played, it's not Masch who needs to step up it's Pique.

Neymar was god awful btw, should have passed the volley, and it would been a goal. You can tell that he isn't really a goals scorer, he's scored 2 tap-ins from 33 shots in La Liga and CL.

The Franchise wrote:Yes, but when he moves middle he leaves the right to one person, a fullback. Which I think is wrong.

Don't disagree with that. If teams cede possession to us as part of their gameplay then that is definitely something we can do.

I don't think we had that bad of a game, we had a terrible first 20 minutes but the rest we glided through and controlled the match.
Mind you we just came back from international week, and from a draw, away from home and Milan are no scrubs..

Buscuit had a great game, his interceptions today were godlike and I don't see why Mascherano is getting all the heat for the bad game, he and Pique both played bad.

remember this is one of 6 games in the group stages, we seemed to slow down and conserve more energy the last 20 minutes for the more important game of Madrid.

Also I sorta miss Alba, Adriano has been rather disappointing lateley, his passing is very off his defence isn't anything to brag about and his stamina runs out.
Alba no matter how bad his defence is he never runs out of energy and is fast enough to track back and defend.

Adriano never got caught out defensively not getting back and Alba might come back and defend, but once there he cant do anything anyway.

I do want Alba back (for the bench), but only because he is a different kind of player and offers the ability to overlap and cross directly. Adriano is an "underlapper".

The Franchise wrote:If we play with a 9, for me Messi needs to play as a 10 and we keep two wide players who play wide and remove a midfielder.

this

The Franchise wrote: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.

Well he sucks at playing this false winger / false CM role. He has been very uninfluencial in attack since last season while being caught more than ever out of position (not his fault, it's impossible to be at two places the same time). He should go back to arriving late in the opposition area and overlapping. This way maybe he would surprise and go back to assisting around 15+ goals a season instead of the 5-10 he will do this way. Also, he wouldn't be caught so much out of his position.

Harmonica wrote:Yeah, Pique was as bad as Mascherano and has been worse defender the games they've played, it's not Masch who needs to step up it's Pique.

Neymar was god awful btw, should have passed the volley, and it would been a goal. You can tell that he isn't really a goals scorer, he's scored 2 tap-ins from 33 shots in La Liga and CL.

No way, I repeat, NO WAY, Piqué was as bad or worse than Machete. Machete costed us the goal, he was "marking" Mexes in that golden header, but thanks to his horrendous aerial game doesn't even trouble him, and he made 2-3 bad clearences more. To his credit, he also made a very good tackle on Muntari.

The Franchise wrote:

harhar11 wrote:Am I the only one who thinks that, while there are areas where the team needs to improve, it wasn't that bad of a performances or atleast compared to last season? Barca actually created 4-5 great chances while at the same time restriced Milan to only 2 good chances.

No, we did have more chances. On other day we may have scored more.

Adriano should of done better, probably should of scored. Neymar went just wide when he might of scored, he had another 2 shots he is capable of troubling the goalie with, Iniesta had a very good chance and a couple others like Dani Alves deep cross to Messi.

And don't forget that Messi chance after a brilliant throughball from Busquets.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

The Franchise wrote:And yeah, I would like a 9 in games like today, but if its Messi to the right then I dont know how much it helps. If we play with a 9, for me Messi needs to play as a 10 and we keep two wide players who play wide and remove a midfielder.

He did play like a 10 sometimes. Had the discretion to go to the middle of the pitch or to the wing when he thought it was appropriate, I think.

I also agree with harhar that on another day Alexis, Iniesta or Adriano might have finished their chances well. Of course, on another day Mexes might have scored his header too or Robinho not missed his second golden chance. While we had clear chances, so did they, so I wouldn't brush it off as '4 times out of 5 we would have scored those, today was just not our day'.

I did mention that. But in the end, I thought that Barca was the more dangerous team with the better chances and that's a huuuuuuuuge improvement from last season.

Bit late but I dont get the criticism of the team and the overall negativity.I thought we played very well.
I think there is a misguided impression that we are going to create dozens of chances against a good team that parks the bus.I am sorry but thats just not going to happen.You can field 11 Messi's on the pitch but still wont create more than 4,5 good chances to score against a good PTB team.

And we did create 4,5 good chances.Issue was we could finish just one and we conceded a silly goal.But overall I was pleased with our performance.

alexjanosik wrote:Bit late but I dont get the criticism of the team and the overall negativity.I thought we played very well.
I think there is a misguided impression that we are going to create dozens of chances against a good team that parks the bus.I am sorry but thats just not going to happen.You can field 11 Messi's on the pitch but still wont create more than 4,5 good chances to score against a good PTB team.

And we did create 4,5 good chances.Issue was we could finish just one and we conceded a silly goal.But overall I was pleased with our performance.

+1

Excatly what I said!

The criticism is because the team doesn't give their all and plays slower than a pensioners club.

Read some enlightening running statistics this afternoon that will post the following days, now I'm on cell phone.

To sum up, we are running 20% less per minute played than Guardiola era, with Xavi running 31% less. While the other teams run more than they used too.

I would be interested in some statistics about the number of chances that we create against parked buses now and when Pep was in charge.I wouldnt be surprised if we create more chances now than under Pep against parked buses.
Against Milan,we created 4,5 very good chances.Under Pep's first season against Chelsea,we created nothing.

On the running thing and not giving their all,I think you are pointing out the wrong player by picking out Xavi's numbers.
If there is one player on the team whose commitment and effort cant be questioned,its Xavi.
I dont dispute your stats.But you have to remember that he is 34 and still playing 50 plus games a year.So ofcourse he runs a bit less but I wouldnt be surprised if still runs the most on our team(he used to atleast).

If you want to talk about players not running much,look no further than Messi.