They had Neymar and an in form Suarez... let's not kid ourselves is exactly right.

So we lost to newly promoted Girona and then Betis at home while clinging on by the skin of our teeth against Malaga, but we somehow believe that we'll bag 6 points from both Clasicos against a side that still hasn't tasted defeat this season and are 8 points clear at the top? Yes? Okay, gotcha!

Valverde is alot more pragmatic this season. Barca don't need a win, we are desperate for a win. Dembele is back too so they'll have speed to counter us. I hope Theo starts in place of Marcelo because Dembele vs Marcelo can get ugly

The Demon of Carthage wrote:So we lost to newly promoted Girona and then Betis at home while clinging on by the skin of our teeth against Malaga, but we somehow believe that we'll bag 6 points from both Clasicos against a side that still hasn't tasted defeat this season and are 8 points clear at the top? Yes? Okay, gotcha!

Exactly. If we were playing well, I would think the counter argument to "We've already lost the league" would have some merit, but the fact of the matter is we are looking much more likely to drop points, and the gap is too large. Frankly, I would be worried about our title chances even if we were ahead in points.

Barca will eventually drop points, but as things stand the gap is likely to increase, until something positive happens on our end, and Barca are not going to give us that many chances.

way too early to talk about clasico. but we can beat them, we beat them some months back no? zidane needs to knock it into the players' heads that every league game is a final; from the first minute. not since 08/09 have i ever looked forward to the winter window

Ah 08/09 and the winter arrivals of Huntelaar and Lass. We even tried to "bully' UEFA into registering Huntelaar in the UCL which, of course, was laughable.

almost the whole squad gareth baled on us that year, especially the dutch players (ruud was out for almost the whole season), that we needed all the help we could to replace injured players. this time its just a case of us thinking our shit didn't stink after the success of last season.....my hope is we learn our lesson going forward, which i doubt we will.

No room for error tonight. We have a chance of cutting the lead to 6 points before the clasico. Hopefully Villarreal do us a favour next matchday so that we can go into the clasico with 4 point gap

Ugh, it's the hope that is killing me. Don't wanna believe and be disappointed. I won't, nope, I won't...

Still there's nothing to be optimistic about. We're still 8 points behind them and we have Bilbao away tonight. Even if we win at San Mamés, we'll still be 6 points behind, and there's nothing to suggest that we'll win the Clasico with our current form.

Having said that, we absolutely have to win tonight. There's absolutely no excuse not to, especially after them dropping points against a team that happens not to be Atlético or Valencia.

I want to be optimistic and certainly still have hope, but there has been nothing demonstrated thus far this year, that leads to any impression, we will win any trophies this season, other than the so called super cups!

Any turnaround lies with Ronaldo and Bale! Sooner or later Ronaldo will start, but he always seems one step too slow this season, so although he will likely get some goals, they won’t be at the frequency of past years. And Bale, well he has to play, nuff said.

lol... the effort you guys put into being sourpusses is impressive.

The bitterness makes life even more sweet. Also, again, we really had no reason to be so behind in the 1st place.

this is so disappointing

you guys up here were already gloating because barca dropped points and then this?

like i said, you keep expecting that barca will drop points, but you are also assuming that we will be perfect the rest of the way which is not reasonable given our form this season.

Well, this is awkward.

We got that really important draw we needed according to Guest07

Mr Nick09 wrote:this is so disappointing

you guys up here were already gloating because barca dropped points and then this?

like i said, you keep expecting that barca will drop points, but you are also assuming that we will be perfect the rest of the way which is not reasonable given our form this season.

Yup, it's easy for people to look at Barca draw and say, hey we have the ability to make up points, but if you look at Barca side by side with RM we look much more likely to drop points than Barca. And thus we have dropped points yet again. We cannot score to save our lives, and in this game you need to score to win.

Now we have Dortmund, and 3 days later Sevilla without Ramos and Carvajal in addition to injured players as well- Bale and Asensio

No Casemiro either

4-4 incoming

Imagine scoring 4 goals in 1 game

The only "negative" result that Barcelona has gotten so far is their home draw against Celta today. Aside from that, they only dropped points against Atlético (away) and Valencia(away). Those are pretty good "draws" considering they were against the second and third-placed teams in the league and on hostile grounds.

I already made my peace with the fact that we won't win the league this year, but I wanted to win tonight nonetheless because Bilbao were unbelievably barbaric, unprofessional and hostile.

And the little fact they are 16th and pretty dreadful. They got KO'ed midweek against a 3rd division too in the CDR. When I thought we reached a new low against Girona, I find out there is a basement. Sigh.

halamadrid2 wrote:No Casemiro either

4-4 incoming

I would welcome scoring 4 goals in a game to be honest. However it will likely be more like 0-4

You're right. What was I thinking believing we could score 4 in one game. Those days are long gome. Nowadays we need a penalty to get past 2 goals

In all fairness when clasico are played form usefully goes out the window.

We will also be without our best defender for 8 weeks.

Barça could play a back line of

Glen Chygrynskiy Henrique Song

With Messi in goal

And we would still never have a chance of scoring.

Hleb*