if LE is going for this more direct system he could try a 4-2-3-1 Busquets/Mascherano-Rakitic in the pivot.

Valkyrja wrote:if LE is going for this more direct system he could try a 4-2-3-1 Busquets/Mascherano-Rakitic in the pivot.

Thing is. There is not really a direct "system" per se. We're still seeing the same system as usual. In fact we're averaging more possession under Lucho than under Guardiola in 10/11. Lucho 70.7 % this season. Pep 67.4 % in 10/11. We're just counterattacking now when the situation calls for it, i. e. when teams press high up the pitch (like Athletic Bilbao or Atletico in the Calderon) and when they turn the ball over we're not trying to build patiently from the back anymore at all cost but attack directly. We also attack from wide areas and not from the middle all the time. That's the only difference really. When teams park the spaceshuttle all of that is redundant though. Even if you want to you can't counterattack against minnows parking the bus. Then you need a strong, creative midfield that can pick those teams apart with possession play. Busquets and Rakitic aren't really creative though. Busquets is a DM, Rakitic has an engine and is a good all-around player but not someone who dictates play. Iniesta has lost it completely. Yesterday he tried to control a simple diagonal pass and used his hands. This is a guy who was renowned for bringing balls under control that drop from the ISS. While 2 defenders are on his back.

It is quite simple jibers.
We are not in the pre Pep era anymore.Pep came and changed the rules of engagement.Pre Pep,it was ok to lose against scrubs at home.Pre Pep it was ok to drop points routinely against scrubs.Pep changed things completely.Suddenly it became a cardinal sin to drop points against scrubs.
Pep made 90 plus points the norm rather than the exception.
Losing at home against scrubs is just not acceptable.I mean,we should be walking this league and out of sight of Mehdrid by now.Instead we are 4 points adrift and handing them the league on a platter.
Just look at the competition.We have a proven league flop Carlo and Mehdrid who are in the midst of an injury crisis. Atletico who are clearly struggling from the after effects of last season.
Meanwhile we have a fit and healthy squad with no injuries whatsoever and MSN at peak form.We should be walking this league and would be doing so under Tata.Instead we are struggling under this scrub who is not good enough for Segunda.
Dont let fussball and his spin fool you.Fraudrique is simply not good enough.

More points at this stage of the season than Pep in his final season. Pls stay safe.

Fußball wrote:Thing is. There is not really a....

Well said and I agree with you (specially with your statement about having a strong and creative midfield to exploit scrubs team's strategy with possession playing).

@BarrileteCosmico: LE needs to motivate the players, that's true. But I guess he needs to come up with something different for playing against these 'scrubs'. I think in yesterday's match, things would have been different if Barça didn't concede that early goal.

Keep spinning fussball.
Cant wait for next season when you are going to get behind the new manager and claim that Enrique was a fraud and that the new manager is going to lead us to the promised land.
Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

I do agree that for the way Scrubrique plays Iniesta is not a good fit.Would like Xavi to play the restrained midfield playmaker role.

Suffering from shizophrenia much? You are the one who calls every manager a fraud and clueless while the season after claim that the previous manager was much better than the current one. Do I need to grab out your quotes about Tata's hoofball tactics again? Who is now supposedly a great coach.

Iniesta is not a good fit for any role and should do the honourable thing and retire. Unless you're suffering from shizophrenia AND Alzheimer's you should remember that Iniesta was frauding hard under Tata, too. With the same excuses to boot ("doesn't fit the shitty tactics").

Dont put words in my mouth.I said Tata was better than Scrubrique.Hardly an achievement.Nowhere have I said Tata is great.

I disagree Tata is better than Scrubdrique. They are both mediocre coaches, but Luis Enrique has more aces in his sleeves. We didn't see anything remarkable under Tata, while at least Luis Enrique showed some interesting stuff, like very good set pieces strategy, formation changes and inventiveness. Yesterday's game was really poor from him though.

alexjanosik wrote:It is quite simple jibers.
We are not in the pre Pep era anymore.Pep came and changed the rules of engagement.Pre Pep,it was ok to lose against scrubs at home.Pre Pep it was ok to drop points routinely against scrubs.Pep changed things completely.Suddenly it became a cardinal sin to drop points against scrubs.
Pep made 90 plus points the norm rather than the exception.
Losing at home against scrubs is just not acceptable.I mean,we should be walking this league and out of sight of Mehdrid by now.Instead we are 4 points adrift and handing them the league on a platter.
Just look at the competition.We have a proven league flop Carlo and Mehdrid who are in the midst of an injury crisis. Atletico who are clearly struggling from the after effects of last season.
Meanwhile we have a fit and healthy squad with no injuries whatsoever and MSN at peak form.We should be walking this league and would be doing so under Tata.Instead we are struggling under this scrub who is not good enough for Segunda.
Dont let fussball and his spin fool you.Fraudrique is simply not good enough.

You address jibers' post but completely ignore his question.....what would you have changed tactically about that game?
As frustrating as LE is, I dislike how some fans bash on the guy simply because his name isn't Pep Guardiola. Pep is gone - deal with it. LE deserves some damn praise for the way he's turned this team around since the new year. The Malaga game aside, this team has been clicking on so many levels. Before last weekend's game everyone was raving about how we'll crush City. The Malaga game was a hiccup, relax.

All you need to do is read Busquets' recent interview.

Busquets:

“Also, at first under Guardiola, teams didn’t give us so much respect; they played openly. Now 95% of them wait, shut down, and counter-attack. It’s more difficult to play one-touch [so the new style] is partly a reaction to other teams. It’s a mix now. Team-mates are not as close to me, which has advantages and disadvantages.”

Stating the obvious.

Out coaching Pels doesn't say much in my opinion.

Fußball wrote:All you need to do is read Busquets' recent interview.

Busquets:

“Also, at first under Guardiola, teams didn’t give us so much respect; they played openly. Now 95% of them wait, shut down, and counter-attack. It’s more difficult to play one-touch [so the new style] is partly a reaction to other teams. It’s a mix now. Team-mates are not as close to me, which has advantages and disadvantages.”

Stating the obvious.

I dont understand what this is supposed to imply? What are we supposed to conclude from this info we all already knew like 5 years ago?

Teams shut up shop against Barca in Pep's 2nd year. Still play good football after that.

Not that we arent now at times, but what's the overall point here?

The Franchise wrote:

Fußball wrote:All you need to do is read Busquets' recent interview.

Busquets:

“Also, at first under Guardiola, teams didn’t give us so much respect; they played openly. Now 95% of them wait, shut down, and counter-attack. It’s more difficult to play one-touch [so the new style] is partly a reaction to other teams. It’s a mix now. Team-mates are not as close to me, which has advantages and disadvantages.”

Stating the obvious.

I dont understand what this is supposed to imply? What are we supposed to conclude from this info we all already knew like 5 years ago?

Teams shut up shop against Barca in Pep's 2nd year. Still play good football after that.

Not that we arent now at times, but what's the overall point here?

So are you asking me or Busquets?

Anyway, you are wrong. Teams didn't play in Pep's 2nd season the same way they are doing now. Sure, some might have adapted but I don't remember seeing this "2 banks of 4 with the 2 strikers also defending right infront of the 2 lines" busparking method as often nor as well executed as it is a common scheme now. Countless examples of naive tactics even in Pep's 3th season. For example I remember Espanyol playing a suicidal highline against Barca in 10/11. Here is Messi putting Pedro through on goal behind the last line of defense around the halfway line.



Here is the video highlight.



Check Villa's goal for the 4th and it's a carbon copy in the same game:



Espanyol are parking the bus ever since.

Malaga under Pellegrini played open football all the time and Barca trashed them all the time. Now this is Malaga:



No need to lose words about Atletico. They had no tactics, now they are the 2nd best busparkers in world football behind Chelsea.

Valencia under Emery always played attacking football. The Alba-Mathieu left flank bombing down the left wing was a common scheme against Barca. Now they are emulating Atletico and parking it hard.

Villarreal? Super defensive 4-4-2 even at home:



Even Real Madrid in 10/11 got trashed because Villa and Pedro could make runs behind the fullbacks for fun.

The smaller teams park the bus by default.

Apart from Rayo Vallecano and Athletic Bilbao pretty much every team parks the bus now even in La Liga.

Sure, in Pep's days you had Chelsea, Inter and Moudrid with Pepe in the middle after they got dicked the first time. And I think Mallorca were always parking it under Laudrup which is why we always dropped points against them. Not compareable to nowadays though.

No team was defending with strikers as midfielders like many teams do now, thats quite new, the last couple years only I have seen that. Started probably with Atletico, getting 2 strikers behind Busquets and letting the midfield stay glued to the back 4. Previously the striker/s had almost no defensive role, now they do..so, yes thats different.

But at the same time, that totally prevents them from high pressing which I still believe to be the current Barca back 4 biggest weakness...dealing with ball pressure. Only 2 players are capable of dealing with pressure, but even one of them nowadays (Pique) is quicker to go long. No more patient and composed Abidal, he been replaced by a far less composed and technical Alba and Marquez ball playing abilities have been replaced by Mascherano who has mastered the art of playing long diagonals with a success rate about half as good as Marquez. Even Puyol, other than the biggest of games were he played much safer and went longer, showed more acceptable composure under pressing. Alves doesnt have the quickness to escape with the dribbles he once had, but remains acceptable at choice of passes and having the composure to wait half a second for the better pass angle to appear.

Anyway im veering off course.

The role of opposing strikers aside, yes even in Pep year 2 teams were defending with 2 banks of 4. Showing me individual incidents when that didnt happen doesnt prove anything, I dont understand why you still do this. We talking consistency here, the full course of a season.

Your showing me naive tactics of opponents, which I agree with...but I see naive tactics as recent as this season vs us...just the other day Levante was pathetically ill prepared to play us.

Overall, the difference I find to be quite small. More teams have more info now, thats all...more teams are clued up. However, dont sell me the dream that every team now is playing us like Shahkter in that Final and its just impossible to play well, meanwhile all but a 2-3 in Peps 4 years played open ended football...thats just totally false.

Your probably selling that dream to ride the Enrique train and Busquets obviously has self interest in mind with his comments.

Against Eibar we saw again one of Luis Enrique (or his assistants) strength's.
Messi's goal from a corner is a fantastic set piece strategy goal. You put your two best aerial threats close to the penalty spot (Pique and Bartra) who move forward drawing their makers (almost grabbing them actually), leaving the least aerially threatening player in the team completely unmarked around the penalty spot, Messi, who can head completely free and he is actually a good header when unopponed.

Very good goal and we have already scored like 10 goals from set pieces this season. Luis Enrique is on par or better than Guardiola in this particular area.

Don't know where to put this.

Barcelona have won a record 37 games after their first 44 games of the season. Previous record: 34/44, in 2010-2011

Should we try playing a diamond midfield?Would give us a bit more control over games.A 4-3-1-2 with Messi at the tip of the diamond.Last couple of games,Messi has played more central.
I feel it is the only way we can have any semblance of control in midfield.
Without the ball,Neymar drops back and we defend in a 4-4-1-1 shape.It is basically how we played the PSG game but that was more instinctive from Messi than any plan from Enrique.

I disagree, i think it is clear that we defended in a 442 as per Luis Enrique's request vs PSG. It was too obvious that Neymar went to the 4 line while Messi and Suarez didnt.
I don't think it's a good idea playing with a 4312, not enough width and Messi too far from goal, IMO.

Harmonica wrote:Don't know where to put this.

Barcelona have won a record 37 games after their first 44 games of the season. Previous record: 34/44, in 2010-2011

Coachessi should be proud

free_cat wrote:I disagree, i think it is clear that we defended in a 442 as per Luis Enrique's request vs PSG. It was too obvious that Neymar went to the 4 line while Messi and Suarez didnt.
I don't think it's a good idea playing with a 4312, not enough width and Messi too far from goal, IMO.

Well,width gets reduced a bit.But on the other hand,we gain more control in midfield.Also I dont think Messi would be farther from goal than he has been playing this season.he has played wide right and central.I think he would probably prefer playing there behind Neymar and Suarez.
Also Neymar can move around Suarez,going wide left and central.Just an option we could try imo to gain more control in midfield.

I certainly think it would help us control games better if we need it. The midfielders have a easier job with the ball because Messi would be standing directly in front of them. The team in a 433 can easily be broken and lead to direct transitions. Thats fine, but surely if your 2-1 up in a game and the other team start pilling on pressure its a better way to go.

Plus while its 4312 on paper, Neymar would play much wider on the left and give us width down that side. He played this exact same formation this way with Santos.

Has anyone here changed their mind about wanting him gone? I know we all like to joke about Coachessi but he has kept us in the 3 tournaments, first in la liga, in the cup final, and Semis in the CL. Of we win just 2 of these titles that's a successful season as far as I'm concerned.

If we win just 1?