RCD Espanyol 0 - FC Barcelona 1

Today
16:00 CET
Estadi Cornellà-El Prat

According to MD, Sport, RAC1 etc. Iniesta will rest. Probable lineup:

Neymar Messi Pedro
Cesc Xavi
Busquets
Alba Masche Pique Alves
Pinto

Probably going to drop points with Cesc leading the midfield.

Prediction: 1-1

Iniesta rest again   I dont like this, when hes tip top form , Tata chooses to drop or rest him consistently....?

Fussball I always respect ur thoughts and insights, but just becos Cesc is in the team doesnt mean we will drop 2 poitsn surely   

Espanyol always try to give me hard game obviously, but recently dont think they have been able to compared with the years b4. And again with Messi on fire, should be a 'comfortable' win for us.

Cesc

At least with Xavi there Barcelona can have some form of control. Cesc is such a waste of space.

We have conceded so Many corners I'm amazed we are not down yet

No I'm amazed were not up by 5.The chances we missed in the first 30 mins were ridiculous.

No Iniesta, no party.

So Tata keeps Iniesta on the bench even though its 0-0 up until almost 70th min or something? Wth.....

We will be called refcerlona again.... Both good decisions though. Phew, Messi doesnt miss! That Japanese ad moving sign at the background, I feared it may affect the penalty taker   

I was just half watching the game, but Espanyol did well and we struggled, although we missed very good chances.

3 points most important   

This game was disgusting, someone please pull the stat of our possession and success rate of passing, i think we might hit an all time low.

Pedro / Dani Alves / Cesc / Neymar all forgot how to pass a simple ball, the movement was horrible Messi's touches seemed to have an extra 40 kg weight on it.

Donuts wrote:This game was disgusting, someone please pull the stat of our possession and success rate of passing, i think we might hit an all time low.

Pedro / Dani Alves / Cesc / Neymar all forgot how to pass a simple ball, the movement was horrible Messi's touches seemed to have an extra 40 kg weight on it.

I was thinking same.lol
What was the success rate of passing today? Anyone?

We were unlucky not to score in the first 30 min, but were lucky with some ref decisions which were questionable (will not say un-correct, but there is a room for debate).

All in all i take the 3 points with huge delight. I was afraid we will draw or loose this game. Very, very important 3 points!

Undeserved win but I'll take it

we may have been unlucky not to score but we were also very lucky not to get scored on.

Pique was very solid again, but then again he's always focused for important games. Busquets looked inspired after a very long time which is also good. Front line was not having a good day tho, didn't look like we'd score any time soon were it not for that penalty. And Neymar really, really needs to work on his finishing, damn.

I'll take the 3 points regardless!

La Liga pitches are killing us. They need to enforce some pitch standards. Only Barca and Mehdrid have propers pitches. Everywhere else the ball keeps wobbling and bobbling and moving slowly, even Messi takes 500 touches.

You can only enforce the size of the pitch. The conditions can't be enforced because of various reasons.

Regarding the game. It was gritty but it didn't look like Espanyol would score at any point. They were playing mainly to disrupt Barcelona via thuggery and had no other motive in the game.

I have been a big critic of Alba but his form lately has been terrific. Was great today. Pique did well too. Wouldn't say it was an undeserved victory because barca did create chances and could have scored 2-3. Pedro was really poor.

  

A clear goal of messi denied there ...... completely pissed off since the punishment did not help us to score.
I disagree Espanyol did not look like threatening. They might not have many chances to score but i believe they got the most clear cut chances missed in the game. In the one Alves completely missed his marker and both Mash and Pique were too slow to intercept a weak cross. Thats would have been an easy goal and it would be very difficult for us to alter if they scored considering our poor form upfront.
But i am happy with the win specially when its our third game in a week time, 2 of which are away from home vs rivals and both very intensifying games. To be honest i was expecting a draw or loss.

great result...

7 Liga games left, 7 finals...

we will be playing both athletic games at home and other games are not so difficult- thats a plus. But what will complicate the matter are CL games in between. I am expecting us and 2 madrid teams loosing more points considering all three teams are still in CL.

Away games are never easy, especially the one against Villarreal... We always suffer against home & away!

Remaining games for Atletico (76), Barcelona (75) and Real Madrid (76)

Khaled wrote:Remaining games for Atletico (76), Barcelona (75) and Real Madrid (76)

Why is RM 76? Don't they have 73 points?

we can afford to draw one and still win the league if we win against Atletico Madrid in round 38.

although I do see atletico madrid eventually losing points.. they have valencia and levante away.

also out of curiosity how can you guys say espanyol was not dangerous when they had two clear cut chances 1v1 with pinto, yet say that we were a threat when we got no closer then they did.

Khaled wrote:Remaining games for Atletico (76), Barcelona (75) and Real Madrid (76)

No doubt, madrid got easier games than us and atletico need to pass a really very tough route to reach their dream.....