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MessiCam
Guest
Barça fans have become obsessed with tracking back and defensive shape. The likes of Coutinho, Dembele, Suarez and Messi shouldn’t be tracking back much. They should be pressing high up. Winning the ball back high up is an attacking opportunity.
It’s always been a Barça principle that the forwards are the first line of defence.
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JamDav1982
Senior Member
Messi and Suarez dont act like the first line of defence or press high up to any great degree.
When see the way some of the top teams press from front with pace it is night and day.
M
MessiCam
Guest
Well sir. That is Valverde’s Barça. I’ve seen them press hard on only 2 occasions. The first half against Sevilla and the first leg of the Copa against Valencia.
The thing is Coutinho will press hard. He played under Klopp who is firm believer in a gegenpressing.
JamDav1982
Senior Member
It is Valverde adapting to the players he has. He is not telling Messi to barely press.
Barca cant press from front the way likes of Liverpool have when dont have players to do it.
Coutinho will press but it breaks down unless all players are doing it and for all the things Messi brings on the ball he causes issues defensively and Valverde is trying to find ways round it.
Stoichkov1
New member
Messi didn't press even under Pep apart from the first season, he doesn't have enough stamina.
JamDav1982
Senior Member
Pep got round it a bit with the best midfield of all time on the ball and less need for defensive work from him although he has pressed more since then.
Pressed a lot more in the second half of last treble season.
Lelouch vi Britannia
Banned
Can we please not collapse in the second half of the season for once?
M
MessiCam
Guest
I can't accept the lack of pressing is to do with Valverde adapting to the players he has... Because, I've seen the very same players do it under his tenure.
Valverde prefers defensive shape and then attacking by means of transitions. Nothing wrong with it but I'm just not a fan of it. It's decidedly Blibao-like...
But you're right, Messi has never been a pressing monster but that's because he was and still is the outlet. Also. the 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 doesn't really allow for these overloads high up.
It is what it is though.
DonAndres
Wild Man of Borneo
You both need to look at the context. Strength of schedule is a thing. I said before that their next 5 away trips are Sevilla, Barca, Villarreal, RM, and Sociedad. In the first round they played all those teams at home and only won 2 (Sevilla and Sociedad), drawing the other 3 (along with a lot of other draws). After that they had a relatively easier schedule with favorable home games and have had good form in La Liga.
However, now they are playing those 5 teams away. This Atletico side got KO'd from the CDR by Sevilla with an aggregate score of 5-2 just a few weeks ago. And they were playing with a full squad, not half assing it like RM did vs Leganes. Atleti are facing an uphill battle and are likely to drop points in a couple of those away games at LEAST.
On the other hand, every single difficult team we play for the rest of La Liga is a home fixture. And we also just got Coutinho and Dembele back from injury, and should be using them to help keep everyone else fit. The tide is in our favor. The point differential is realistically going to increase, not decrease. This season's current form is a better indicator of league performance than whatever Atleti did back in 2013/14, when more than half their starters were different. And the context says that Atleti are going to have a harder time in the league now than they have for a few months.
A top team especially the likes of RM and Barca should be able to coast to some degree in the league. It's actually BETTER to do so because it conserves energy and keeps your form as consistent as possible instead of gassing out later on in the league as we have somewhat done the past few weeks. This is true for any sport in the regular season vs the KO playoff rounds, teams up their intensity and focus. American football, baseball, hockey, and basketball players all try visibly harder in the postseason. Tennis players play harder in Grand Slams than minor ones, etc. And football teams should be able to bring an extra gear to the CL, that is just the competitive nature of the competition.
Teams try harder, it is more cutthroat. If you compare statistics for distance traveled in a match the top 10 highest in the EPL only barely go up to 12km/game and very few of those are midfielders for CL teams, mostly smaller club players that have to work harder in the league. However the top 10 in the CL respectively cover a larger amount of distance, a majority of whom are from big CL contenders, and the range goes up to almost 13.5km/game. The data shows that players from big clubs tend to try a lot harder in the CL and play at a more intense level. Matic for example was #2 in the EPL and #1 in the CL for that season in distance covered, and he ran almost 1.5km/game more in the CL which is pretty difficult at that point of exertion. These stats are both from 14/15 by the way.
And if your squad is tired or out of rhythm for these more intense games, you are just asking to be outplayed or outdefended, simple as that. You must be able to play at your hardest in these CL knockouts.
Rather poor timing for this post given our current form and we play an in form Chelsea with Hazard going directly up against Rakitic and Sergi Roberto ... what could go wrong
Ghostmaster
Danger Ahead
Rather poor timing for this post given our current form and we play an in form Chelsea with Hazard going directly up against Rakitic and Sergi Roberto ... what could go wrong
Chelsea has played West Ham who are at the bottom of the table in PL and Hull City who are at the bottom of the table in Championship. Had we played Malaga and Murcia before Chelsea game maybe we would have been in better form.
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jairzinho
Senior Member
I don’t get this thing about Chelsea being in better form.
They’ve been awful since the start of the year and got a break against Hull and West Ham, a championship team and a bottom place epl team.
Prior to that they were exposed by two mid table teams.
Their form isn’t great but nonetheless they do have genuine attacking players that can hurt us.
They’ve been awful since the start of the year and got a break against Hull and West Ham, a championship team and a bottom place epl team.
Prior to that they were exposed by two mid table teams.
Their form isn’t great but nonetheless they do have genuine attacking players that can hurt us.
Aryagorn
Improvin' Perfection!!
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