Luis Enrique

The obvious tactic is to transplant Messi. Barcelona is built around a central ultra creative player for decades - Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Messi... etc. Everything points towards feeding Messi at Barceona at this point in time.

Obviously when he is injured - we have the money and talent to find solutions. Forget players like Arda, Paco and Denis - these players should have never been signed in normal circumstances.

The simple remedy today should have been to give Neymar Junior the free role in the middle. He can find holes and be as involved as he wishes - as he was playing for Brazil and Santos in a similar role. Putting him tucked far left - where defenders can easily overlap to cancel him out was a poor decision. He should have been given the free role today and that was obvious. Lucho missed it because he is not a tactician and still hopes to make players like Arda and Paco mean something. The team today should have been about destroying Malaga. That will never happen with the formation and players Lucho selected today. Rakitic being left out again was completely moronic too.

serghei said:

Great post [MENTION=15731]Sumlit[/MENTION]. We don't always agree, but this time we see eye to eye. I think the problem is Lucho has a simple by-the-numbers tactic against team that defend deep. That is bomb them from the wings. Instead of trying to get our game organized and to unlock them with quick and precise passes, we use a by-the-numbers approach, thinking that more players in the box automatically means a better game. Which is plain dumb.

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I think even that tactic has devolved this season. Last couple of seasons the midfield-fullback dynamic was good enough to do that wing play, plus support and feed MSN. This season however the dynamic is lost. Perhaps because Iniesta and Alba have been injured and their replacements either cannot do it, or haven't been instructed to do it, and perhaps because Roberto and Rakitic simply don't have the same understanding Rakitic and Alves had.

I say the above, but IMHO I do not think it's the players, or maybe not on them primarily. It is true that Arda, Rafinha and Denis are not CMs and are asked to play in midfield roles that are for CMs, but the utter mess of this midfield is not because of this. All 3 of them plus Gomes are talented enough and smart enough to be able to link with the fullbacks, the defense and themselves to play with a lot more efficiency and effectiveness than this.

The key is very apparent to me in the overall tactics and what the coach is instructing them to play. The positioning of them on the field, and the fact Lucho substitutes one for the other midgame, and the one coming in plays the exact same way, in the exact same position as the one who left, is all the evidence I need to know this is coach driven.

I only hope he sees it is not working and changes things a bit. He's against the wall with the next two games. Lose points and it'll get really ugly.

The transfer of these two year is really worse, most of new players always shine in counter attack, not for possession football. Our midfielder still has no quality upgrade after spending huge money.

serghei said:

I don't expect us to be as good as with Pep. No one is asking that. Lucho has done a good job, but let's not overreact here. He has 3 players that score around 120+ goals between them in a season. Remember, Tata Martino came in on short notice, without any transfers, and as bad as he was according to people here, he was two games short of making a domestic double. Fine margins.

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He was two games short of domestic double and still ended up with non.Pep took a team from Rijkaard that was competing in CDR & CL semi-final (and could have ended in both finals with some luck) and was competing for Liga until almost March with half of the team injured . That doesn't change the fact that both coaches has changed the culture of the team and put fresh ideas.
And I simply refuse the whole "he has players who score 120 goals between them" argument. Because if 3 players are scoring that much that speaks volume about coach success not the opposite. For me people are underestimating coach role here. Players won't play that gr8 on their own. We have seen it way too many times team with gr8 players fail.

khaled_a_d said:

He was two games short of domestic double and still ended up with non.Pep took a team from Rijkaard that was competing in CDR & CL semi-final (and could have ended in both finals with some luck) and was competing for Liga until almost March with half of the team injured . That doesn't change the fact that both coaches has changed the culture of the team and put fresh ideas.
And I simply refuse the whole "he has players who score 120 goals between them" argument. Because if 3 players are scoring that much that speaks volume about coach success not the opposite. For me people are underestimating coach role here. Players won't play that gr8 on their own. We have seen it way too many times team with gr8 players fail.

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If Tata Martino had Suarez as a 9, because he clearly wanted to play with a clear 9, chances are he would've won at least a double in his first season. At least. And let's not even discuss about the bad luck of not having Valdes and relying on Pinto for the most important part of the season. It's super easy to say Tata won nothing and Lucho won a treble, without looking at some things that worked in Lucho's favour without him doing anything about it. How nice it is to need a striker badly and sign the best in the world. That is a luxury that Martino never had in his first season, keep that in mind.

It would be mostly the manager's credit if those 3 players wouldn't be worth about 400m. combined. The individual quality of Messi, Suarez, and Neymar isn't influenced by Lucho in any way. Lucho did what most managers would do - develop a game concentrated on their individual quality, a quality that is not a result of Luis Enrique's coaching or instructions. When their individual form drops, the team is bad. If Lucho actually had a system of getting these 3 to play great, instead of just relying on them to always be at their personal best, we wouldn't be so dependant on their individual form. But he hasn't. I like Enrique, but in my mind he's not a great manager.

Lucho deserves credit for making the team play to its potential, but the potential was always there and the quality was always there. In the same way, he now deserves heavy criticism because he has a great team that is not performing. He has a better team than in the past, but he has deteriorated as a manager, both tactically and regarding man-management, so that now, despite improvements in the squad, the level is dropping. Lucho went from amazing - 1st season, to very good - 2nd season, to now pretty bad. There is a constant drop in level of play and results.

What I don't like the most is that nothing changes and we see same mistakes over and over. This, for me, is a sign that Lucho either doesn't see the problem or doesn't know how to fix it. I already said, in first season he did change our tactics that needed a change. We played deeper and more direct...now, that could have happened after Xavis talk or wathever the reason but there was a change and we saw it. Now we neither play deep pressing and counters, needer direct, neither tiki taka we play some clueless positioning, slow game that virtually every bus can stop. Of course you'll have problems with Atletico and teams like that but now even Malaga bus is enough. It is now obvious that our great games oh halfs came from Messis anger and similar things.
LE is obviously not a top coach, decent one - yes, but not top, and this club needs top coach.
I'm really tired of seeing same games and same mistakes over and over!

Lucho thinks we lose because of bad luck

serghei said:

Lucho deserves credit for making the team play to its potential, but the potential was always there and the quality was always there. In the same way, he now deserves heavy criticism because he has a great team that is not performing.

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Isn't that the job of any manager?to make the team plays to its potential.
And I never said Lucho doesn't deserve criticism now. He deserves it but as I said all along you can't say he didn't have anything to do with our success or that we just had MSN or keep saying he is exposed of what he really is and all that unfair criticism.

khaled_a_d said:

Isn't that the job of any manager?to make the team plays to its potential.
And I never said Lucho doesn't deserve criticism now. He deserves it but as I said all along you can't say he didn't have anything to do with our success or that we just had MSN or keep saying he is exposed of what he really is and all that unfair criticism.

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It is. But it's extremely worrying that the more options he has, the worse he looks as a manager. How is that possible? It's as if having more options means he can take the poorest decisions more often than in the past, where the limited squad left him with less options. The fewer options Lucho has the better. I'd rather have a clear first 11 and play it more often (certainly not resting players in the game that is supposed to get you 1st in the league), than having a big and quality squad and manage it wrong with bad and fixed ideas.

And I also said he deserves credit, but that I think he isn't a great manager. Which is fine, when you have the best team you can get very good results without having the greatest managers in charge, just by making sure the concentration and motivation is there, and by not doing anything too crazy with the tactics and rotations (he seems to be bad both at tactics, and at player selection, two of the things that a great manager should be absolutely great at). Do I think Lucho would've had this success if he didn't have the unique luxury of lining up probably the greatest trio every assembled by a club team at the same time? No, because he is not a great manager. But I don't think it matters if he is or isn't a great manager if he can deliver the results. But can he still do that?

Its great that he has so much fate in his whole squad but he should really stop rotating so much, especially in midfield. Rakitic was available yesterday, why didn't he start? I don't get it.

Sumlit said:

I think even that tactic has devolved this season. Last couple of seasons the midfield-fullback dynamic was good enough to do that wing play, plus support and feed MSN. This season however the dynamic is lost. Perhaps because Iniesta and Alba have been injured and their replacements either cannot do it, or haven't been instructed to do it, and perhaps because Roberto and Rakitic simply don't have the same understanding Rakitic and Alves had.

I say the above, but IMHO I do not think it's the players, or maybe not on them primarily. It is true that Arda, Rafinha and Denis are not CMs and are asked to play in midfield roles that are for CMs, but the utter mess of this midfield is not because of this. All 3 of them plus Gomes are talented enough and smart enough to be able to link with the fullbacks, the defense and themselves to play with a lot more efficiency and effectiveness than this.

The key is very apparent to me in the overall tactics and what the coach is instructing them to play. The positioning of them on the field, and the fact Lucho substitutes one for the other midgame, and the one coming in plays the exact same way, in the exact same position as the one who left, is all the evidence I need to know this is coach driven.

I only hope he sees it is not working and changes things a bit. He's against the wall with the next two games. Lose points and it'll get really ugly.

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I've just watched some extended highlights with the Malaga game from 2014 and something is clearly wrong with the timing of our runs in the box. We bring the ball in the box faster, but we do it in a more chaotic way, because the midfield has almost no role other than frenetically going upwards and making runs. Instead of trying to do runs in space, when players see an option to do that, we now do runs as a way of playing to the point that the opposing team doesn't even leave their positions anymore, because they know that Rafinha and Denis will go up. We're playing too direct and that is not our style at all.

The point of a run from the 2nd line from our midfielders, inside our attacking line is to surprise opponents who don't expect this player to be there in that spot (think Rakitic's goal vs Juventus). If we start to do it constantly, teams will adapt to it easily. Our midfielders need to be midfielders first, but now, they look like they play there only part time, while most of the time they will go in the box.



Here. Why are we not playing option 1, or option 2? One of those two passes have to trigger a reaction from Malaga defensive line (first 3 defenders are taken out by either pass option 1, or pass option 2). If we pass to Andre, one of the CBs in the picture need to go up and block him. He can then play the ball foward, because one of his strenghts is that he can pass very quickly and doesn't need a lot of touches. Why are we not taking option 2, which is the best and the most safe pass? The guy there is unmarked and he can even receive the ball and go with the ball towards Malaga's 16m box, until, again, one of Malaga's players come out to block him, at which point spaces are created and he can play a through ball.

Why choose no3 pass time and time again. Ball to Neymar in order for him to make something happen. Such a bad approach.

And to follow up on the play. Here is where that "great pass" leaves us. Check how dead that position is.



Now Neymar makes that amazing sombrero dribble and he creates a dangerous situation out of a bad build-up. However, you put him in the same position, and expecting him to create bits of magic every single time, and he will, of course, lose the ball more times than he will do something great with it. Then everyone on Barcaforum will say how shit he is, without actually taking into consideration that the team is putting him in positions where he has to do a lot of things on his own. Sometimes he does, somethimes a bad build-up remains a bad build-up and the ball is lost.

That's Lucho's Barcelona this season. A bunch of bad decisions in build-up, resulting in situations where players are forced to do a lot of things on their own, based on their individual inspiration. That is why people say there is no system.

Also, very important. The guy from Malaga who earlier could've been taken out of that play (by choosing passing option 1 or passing option 2) is now in the box and is marking one of our players with ease. Why? Because if you play long balls out wide, the other team will have enough time to crowd their box and mark every single one of our players. That is why in the picture above there are 5 Malaga players for 2 of ours.

The time it takes for the ball to travel a long distance, plus the time it takes Neymar to stop the ball, plus the time it takes for him to think about what to do. You add those moments and in the end, Malaga has enough time to take care of whatever players we have in the box waiting for a good ball. We rarely put them in a situation where they do not have time to react to a situation. And then Lucho comes and says that we have had many chances, but few of them clear? No fucking shit.

Some managers, just should never be given a big squad, it's like giving the joker some TNT, he will blow shit up.

By for the love of God he keeps rotating the team every other game, only God knows. When it's clearly not working.

If we get back to the initial situation, before the direct ball on the wings was played, you can see that we could have been in a situation to play a 3vs3 directly on Malaga's backline. But no, let's just give the ball to Neymar, in a shit position, and hope he does something with it.

And people say why do we bring Pep in dicussion? Because Pep is playing top football with any team, not just with Xavi and Iniesta. He will work with his midfielders, here Andre Gomes, to make sure he can receive the ball in that position. Because if he can control that ball, danger happens for Malaga. No team is able to shut you out, so you can always find moments when pass 1 can happen. You just have to play it, and stop thinking players' genius will solve the game for you.

This is the worst start in La Liga after 12 games since 2007/2008 season and that was Rijkaard's last year with Barca.