Uefa Champions League 2018 thread

[windkick]

Official 2018 Champions League discussion

Group Stage:
Barcelona (14 points) 4 wins, 2 draws, 0 losses
Tottenham (8 points) 2 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses
Inter Milan (8 points) 2 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses
PSV (2 points) 0 wins, 2 draws, 4 losses

Round of 16:
Olympique Lyonnais
Leg 1 Result (Away) :
Leg 2 Result (Home) :

[alexjanosik]

Not sure this is going to be easy. Lyon gave City a tough time and I think we are going to struggle as well. Might be a good time to check out their midfielders, especially NDombele who could replace Busquets.

[BarcaLearning]

I feel our team this season with the focus on the CL, will progress without problems, especially with the form we are on atm, it will be in Feb, so unless we have a real dip dont see how we would be in danger of not. Getting good feelings more and more as the season goes on

[windkick]

I agree with Alex. I think we will advance but it will not be as easy as it would seem on paper.

[windkick]

We couldn’t be in worse form going into this game. Entire team seems out of rhythm and tired.

[windkick]

I got a bad feeling about this game.

[Thimmy]

Lyon's end product has been depressing to watch. Really wish Fekir had been out there.

[Thimmy]

I see Dembele's back in turnover machine mode

[Kebab]

Passing the ball to Suarez is almost equal to passing it to opponent players, his tricks never work, last time it worked was 2 years ago. But instead he tries to dribble again and again with his fat and slow body

[Thimmy]

Dubois has been a difference maker for Lyon in defense. Top performance by him.

[windkick]

Good thing EV learned from mistakes against Roma.

[Myesyats]

I see Dembele's back in turnover machine mode

1st game post-injury tho

[Kebab]

I thought Suarez was saving himself for CL, but it seems he became shit in general, how can a player lose every ball he gets and get away with it? Dembele despite playing much better than him gets replaced but flop of the match still plays most probably because he is messi's best friend. I'm sure if Benzema played instead him score would be different

Messi's dribbling suddenly became amazing again, he was unplayable in some moments. Him, Alba and Busquets were best players for me

[Thimmy]

I didn't realize he'd been injured. Regardlessly, not a very good game by your forwards. I think Suarez looked like a more consistent attacking threat than Dembele, despite the criticism towards his predictability, but man - he's gotten so much slower than he used to be. Kept isolating himself and revealing how slow he's gotten, but was the only guy who consistently drove the ball into dangerous positions. Dembele was the opposite in this match. Plenty of speed, managed to beat his marker occasionally, but wasteful in possession and held onto the ball longer than necessary on several occasions. I don't know what his decision making has been like in other matches this season, but it would definitely benefit him if he could release the ball sooner. Looking forward to the return leg at Camp Nou.

[Kebab]

Did you watch the same match dude? Suarez was the flop of the match by a big margin. He drove the ball into dangerous positions but none of them worked. He sends the ball into dangerous position with his eyes closed, he made 7 dribbling attempts with zero success. Dembele was much better than him. Actually i rarely see a player with a match rating 4. But Suarez got it today by most big sport websites and many of them rated dembele as one of the best on the pitch

[Thimmy]

many of them rated dembele as one of the best on the pitch

Really? I suppose he wasn't bad, but with that much wastefulness in possession, I struggle to agree that he was a man of the match contender. If it wasn't for Lyon's lack of end product and quality of passing, some of the counter attacks they started after Dembele lost possession, could've cost you dearly. I suppose that says more about the game than his performance, if he was among the highest rated players. Yes, Suarez was wasteful as well, and like I pointed out, his speed let him down every time he attempted to drive it forward. But none of your players showed the same amount of drive to create direct attacking threats. Your entire frontline were quite frankly a lot more underwhelming than I had expected them to be in this match. Messi instantly made a nuisance of himself at times, but even he wasn't able to change the result. That said, I expect things to be more one sided at Camp Nou. Hopefully, I'm wrong. Hopefully, Dembele puts in another one of these GOAT performances.

[futbol]

Barca were dominant but in the last few games just can't score, don't know what's going on.

[windkick]

Suarez was terrible. Probablem is they have no real striker to bench him for. If Dembele isn’t on his gamd you can still bring in Coutinho or Malcom and roll the dice with them but with Suarez we have no other player to sub him out for. Messi was great and so was Busq. All in all I still feel we should win at the Camp Nou but not getting an away goal makes things tricky.

[alexjanosik]

Didnt watch the match. Saw the highlights. From the looks of it, we completely dominated and should have won by a couple of goals with better finishing/ final ball.
Suarez is shot. He has chronic knee issues and has to take injections to play. And our foolish obsession with the useless Copa means that he has come into the business end of the season dead tired.

[Kebab]

Yeah exactly.when messi saves his energy in useless copa matches a.janosik bashes him. Now he criticises suarez for not saving his energy in copa matches. And no, its not valverde's fault, he cant bench suarez, messi and pique in that team, probably alba and busquets too

[Thimmy]

Suarez was terrible. Probablem is they have no real striker to bench him for. If Dembele isn’t on his gamd you can still bring in Coutinho or Malcom and roll the dice with them but with Suarez we have no other player to sub him out for. Messi was great and so was Busq. All in all I still feel we should win at the Camp Nou but not getting an away goal makes things tricky.

I'm not saying he wasn't terrible. In terms of end product, your entire frontline was. It was a bit odd to see neither side being able to finish off their attacks when both sides should have been able to score on more than one occasion, Barca especially. I haven't read any match ratings, but Dembele being among the top rated players seems puzzling to me. He brought speed and the occasional dribble shot to beat his marker, but pretty much zero direct attacking threat. I also think you'd look a lot more dominant if he didn't needlessly give the ball away so many times without even getting to the box. A more ruthless counter-attacking team would've punished you harshly for that, but Lyon were excruciatingly slow on the counters.

[alexjanosik]

Yeah exactly.when messi saves his energy in useless copa matches a.janosik bashes him. Now he criticises suarez for not saving his energy in copa matches. And no, its not valverde's fault, he cant bench suarez, messi and pique in that team, probably alba and busquets too

I was criticizing the club as a whole for prioritizing the Copa. And Messi and Suarez are different. One gives his all every single game and the other walks around as if he owns the pitch. Messi can play 365 days a year and still not be tired.

[Beautiful Football]

Yeah exactly.when messi saves his energy in useless copa matches a.janosik bashes him. Now he criticises suarez for not saving his energy in copa matches. And no, its not valverde's fault, he cant bench suarez, messi and pique in that team, probably alba and busquets too

I was criticizing the club as a whole for prioritizing the Copa. And Messi and Suarez are different. One gives his all every single game and the other walks around as if he owns the pitch. Messi can play 365 days a year and still not be tired.

Suarez UCl form is really dismissal. He hasn't score a single away goal since 2015. 24 hours of away games he hasn't score a goal. I will take a walking donkey who can score a goal rather than a bull who can't score a single away goal since 4 years. Suarez has no excuse. He is our main striker. I would rather him walk like messi and score a goal so we can win UCl. He can run all day and noting to show for it. In UCl he is more useless than messi. Doesn't matter which way you see it. If he can step up we don't even need messi. Alex you are really blind by suarez but his UCL form is shit. It has noting to do with messi.

[alexjanosik]

Watched the game. I thought it was the perfect away knockout performance from us. They didnt have a sniff. We completely dominated and deserved to win by a couple of goals at least. Ball wouldnt go in. No away goal is tricky and leaves us vulnerable for the return leg.

I thought everyone played well. Surprised by the movement of Messi. He was really moving well. Hope he moves like this in the rest of the CL games.

[futbol]

Yeah exactly.when messi saves his energy in useless copa matches a.janosik bashes him. Now he criticises suarez for not saving his energy in copa matches. And no, its not valverde's fault, he cant bench suarez, messi and pique in that team, probably alba and busquets too

I was criticizing the club as a whole for prioritizing the Copa. And Messi and Suarez are different. One gives his all every single game and the other walks around as if he owns the pitch. Messi can play 365 days a year and still not be tired.

Suarez UCl form is really dismissal. He hasn't score a single away goal since 2015. 24 hours of away games he hasn't score a goal. I will take a walking donkey who can score a goal rather than a bull who can't score a single away goal since 4 years. Suarez has no excuse. He is our main striker. I would rather him walk like messi and score a goal so we can win UCl. He can run all day and noting to show for it. In UCl he is more useless than messi. Doesn't matter which way you see it. If he can step up we don't even need messi. Alex you are really blind by suarez but his UCL form is shit. It has noting to do with messi.

Random meaningless stat. First of all "since 2015" makes it sound worse than it is. We made it past the quarters since 2015 0 times. So that's about 7 away games we played and we played them against some of the most stubbord defensive sides like Juventus, Chelsea, Atletico. Messi has 3 away goals in the same timeframe, 2 of them against Arsenal with 1 being a penalty. And that's Messi. So why should Suarez be equal or better. 0 - 1 goals is about right for Suarez judging by Messi's level.

Also his form in UCL isn't shit. He created 3 goals against Chelsea only last season at home.

Our fanbase is the worst in the world. Some idiot on Twitter publishes a random argument with a shit random statistic and everyone is parroting it without putting any own thoughts into the argument.

Feel free to campaign for #bringPacoBackHome and put him up against Juventus, PSG, Chelsea, Atletico away from home and see what happens. lol

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