lol. reading the comments here. 'playing like shit', 'Alves having a horrorshow', but I see the scoreline is 5:0.

La Liga isn't that good is it. Would be interested to read stats about how many seconds on the ball Barca players get from Levante until they are closed down and challenged (I'm going to say... infinite), as opposed to how many seconds Bayern players get on the ball against Hamburg (maybe half a second?).

Harmonica wrote:0 goals conceded, neither can I.

That's due to Lucho's tactics more than Mathieu. Mathieu is as much a CB as Mascherano is btw (Mascherano has played as a CB longer even)

I think it has more to do with Barca fans being hyperbolic in their players flaws and having very high standards rather than La Liga being especially bad. It's no PL, but the constant good performances on european football prove that it's much better than the rest.

Well hope Neymar is okay..
Alves is bad.
Mathieu had an ehh game
Alba is alba..

our midfield though the way they transition defensively... rakitic with an amazing stop that would of been a goal...

Messi's passing is crazy and he pressured the backline alot today, wish he would of scored the pen though.
Neymar and Messi combo =

It seems Bravo will be our league GK and Ter Stegen our CdR/CL?

MaTS will be brought in very slowly in my opinion.
glad to see goals from rakitic pedro and sandro today though, hopefully it boosts their morale.

Hard to tell as of now. Going to be interesting to see who starts el clasico

Hapless_Hans wrote:lol. reading the comments here. 'playing like shit', 'Alves having a horrorshow', but I see the scoreline is 5:0.

La Liga isn't that good is it. Would be interested to read stats about how many seconds on the ball Barca players get from Levante until they are closed down and challenged (I'm going to say... infinite), as opposed to how many seconds Bayern players get on the ball against Hamburg (maybe half a second?).

At the time of those comments I imagine it was 0-0 and we struggling before Neymar scored. Even a bit after.

Levante are a poor side, they havent scored a goal since last season, this is what crap sides do. Give too much time and space.

Rakitic was great save that goal and scored his incredible goal, but he didnt have a good game. Mis-controlled half a dozen balls.

The Franchise wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:lol. reading the comments here. 'playing like shit', 'Alves having a horrorshow', but I see the scoreline is 5:0.

La Liga isn't that good is it. Would be interested to read stats about how many seconds on the ball Barca players get from Levante until they are closed down and challenged (I'm going to say... infinite), as opposed to how many seconds Bayern players get on the ball against Hamburg (maybe half a second?).

At the time of those comments I imagine it was 0-0 and we struggling before Neymar scored. Even a bit after.

Levante are a poor side, they havent scored a goal since last season, this is what crap sides do. Give too much time and space.

Yup; and this time don't have Navas to get them out of jams

First of all I can't understand Alves's usefulness to the team any more. Lack of hunger or whatever the reason might be, he has become a liability in both attack and defence. Whoever thinking "limiting" Alves to an overlapping fullback should watch his days at Sevilla and first year at Barcelona again. He was a bomb and a true attacking menace back in the day. He is limited to a static midfielder now.

The coach has been getting the best out of certain players who didn't have the best time under previous coaches. Players such as Alba, who were never bad players but found it hard to fit in the system due to lacking certain vital qualities have been relishing under his more direct attacking approach. On the other hand players such as Xavi and Alves find it hard to be useful with the current set up because they are too static going forward.

To me Enrique's team looks like a real scrub killer. Due to this reason I have a feeling La Liga will go to Barça this season. On the big stage however I believe his tactics will be prone to numerous defensive errors.

Yeah, Alves has been bad a long time now, he's practically wasting so many attacks with useless crossing. And it isn't even the lack of height in attack, but the crosses aren't getting even close of own players.

The Franchise wrote:Rakitic was great save that goal and scored his incredible goal, but he didnt have a good game. Mis-controlled half a dozen balls.

I have that 100 times out of 100 if the alternative is controlling every ball and producing nothing.

Neymar isn't injured, it was only a precaution as he even seemed displeased at being substituted moreso he walked perfectly fine to the bench..Alves has become a liability, buh do we have a better option? Rackitic is miles better than xavi in this set-up and it isn't even up for discussion, & as for the defenders, i'd rather have bad, old defenders and not concede goals than have so called WC defenders and concede at the merest of threats..how i wish this barca would be scrub killers like some of us are predicting, then the league would pretty much be in the bag by january 2015..Neymar and messi though.(has neymar even played up to 90mins combined?) and he already is joint second la-liga top scorer already, 3 goals in bout 90mins..That form.

what site has up to date stats? I want to see goal/assist stats in La Liga

EDIT: ESPN has them updated now; I rememeber back in the day i never trusted the figures they would post as being current but these are legit. Funny Chicharito already has more goals in La Liga than Benz this season

http://www.espnfc.com/spanish-primera-divisi%C3%B3n/15/statistics/scorers

The Franchise wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:lol. reading the comments here. 'playing like shit', 'Alves having a horrorshow', but I see the scoreline is 5:0.

La Liga isn't that good is it. Would be interested to read stats about how many seconds on the ball Barca players get from Levante until they are closed down and challenged (I'm going to say... infinite), as opposed to how many seconds Bayern players get on the ball against Hamburg (maybe half a second?).

At the time of those comments I imagine it was 0-0 and we struggling before Neymar scored. Even a bit after.

Levante are a poor side, they havent scored a goal since last season, this is what crap sides do. Give too much time and space.

sure, just trolling.
Also I think they were down to 10 when I switched on.

I missed this match. How did the Frenchman do?

he keeps having small problems with clearing the ball.

random stat from rakitic
140 touches, 120 passes, 91% pass accuracy.

and another random
Barcelona's top scorers: Messi 3 goals, Neymar 3 goals (all assisted by Messi), Sandro 2 goals (all assisted by Messi) [via @barca19stats]

Harmonica wrote:

The Franchise wrote:Rakitic was great save that goal and scored his incredible goal, but he didnt have a good game. Mis-controlled half a dozen balls.

I have that 100 times out of 100 if the alternative is controlling every ball and producing nothing.

Well you dont know much about football, so that would make sense.

Franchise,

Out of what Rakitic has done for us and what Cesc did before...which one are you happier with?

Rakitic is faster, and pretty much just likes to run and cause havic that way while Cesc is allot slower and tried to get by and being technical (which by our clubs midfield standards, he is deff not). But Rakitic ping pong play sometimes scares me, I feel as he will lose the ball sometimes when he shouldnt even though he does a good job at getting back to recover. He is easily our most active midfielder (from what I can see via eye ball test, not sure if stats back that up).

I think Rakitic still has room to improve his game, even though i wish we gunned for Pjanic or however you spell his name from Roma

Thats not even a close question for me. Rakitic is miles superior to Cesc so far.

The mere fact he defends puts him in my good graces and over the top.

He still getting used to the speed of our passing and the defensive congestion we have to play against but I believe he will improve on that as time goes by.

But he is always available for the pass and shows good range of passing. Doesnt go into hiding.

He is capable of scoring goals and has some physical presence.

Interested to see what him and the team in general does against some adversity though.

But yeah overall, I am struggling to think one a single thing Cesc brought us which was better.

I havent yet seen the Malaga game but a few comments on this one.Another game and more of the same tactics that I mentioned.
Rakitic and Iniesta exchanged a grand total of 3 passes till the 60th minute when Rakitic moved to DM.I believe 2 or 3 passes were exchanged between Iniesta and Messi.
No midfield play through the middle,no passing through the middle,just get it out wide to the fullbacks and a hopeful cross.
Failing that,Messi drops deep and tries a throughball for the forwards.

Worse than Martino ball but since Enrique is a Barca legend,everything is ignored and he gets a free pass.The only positive is that we are far better defensively but the reason for that is not something I like.I had started a thread asking whether we should drop a midfielder back if we were not going to press.The reasoing being that we should have atleast 4 players behind the ball for counters.Well Enrique has taken that one step further.This team doesnt press either.So Enrique has dropped 2 midfielders behind the ball.
The fullbacks push up and the 2 CM's stay back always.So we have 2 CB's,Busquets,Rakitic and Iniesta always behind the ball.Thats the reason we have barely been countered this season.I cant remember a single counter against us.Increadibly hard to get countered on when we have 5 players behind the ball always.Thats incredibly defensive from us.And I dont like it.

Coming to the tactics,very one dimensional and wont work against the better teams.With the ball,he is basically relying on Messi magic or hopeful crosses from the fullbacks to create chances.I think the stats will back me up.None of the other midfielders have created significant chances.The other forwards havent either.Its either Messi or the fullbacks.
With the ball,the shape essentially becomes what you would see in a diamond formation.Fullbacks pushed up.The 2 forwards go central and occupy the space between FB and CB.I assume this is done for 2 reasons.To provide options for Messi and to prevent the CB's from following Messi out.The problem is that this has already been tried and tested and it no longer works.The CB's no longer follow Messi out.They know its suicidal to do so.So they stay in position and let the DM's worry about Messi.Busquets is the one who initiates most of the attacks through releasing that ball to Messi.
So I were a coach playing against Enrique my task would be very simple.I would ask my 10 to mark Busquets and not give one second on the ball.Pressure him relentlessly and prevent him from playing that ball to Messi.I would ask my CB's to stay in position and not follow Messi out.Squeeze the space between FB and CB and narrow the space for the throughball pass from Messi.Play deep so that the overhead ball from Messi is also cut off.Ask my DM's to close off Messi's passing lanes.And we become toothless.As simple as that.I had said that Enrique's tactics are not good and we would be found out.I assume thats what happened against Malaga.I heard zero shots on target.Must have played deep and cut off the throughball options for Messi.