Jordi Alba

DonAK said:

No, when he keep crossing the ball into the defender's leg every game.

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Crossing badly, passing badly, bad decisions etc.
He was only good in defense preventing counters.

After a few lost balls in the first 20-30 minutes, our players (Iniesta and Neymar) started to ignore him.
Alba was free a lot of times on the left, but Iniesta and Neymar passed the ball to the middle or to the right.

So, we have a funny situation sometimes:
1. no one is passing the ball to RB Roberto in attack since he is useless
2. players gave up from Alba also later in the match, as a LB
3. Rakitic can't do anything with a ball lately
4. Suarez was alone and lost, miles away from our other players

Basically, we had only Messi, Neymar, Iniesta, Busi (and sometimes Rakitic) passing the ball around and Neymar/Messi trying to dribble past 45 opponents.
Pique, Umtiti, Alba, Roberto (and Raki to some extent) were either ignored by teammates or totally useless when they do get the ball.

So, basically, it was really hard to win against Juventus when we played with 4 players against 11 opponents.
0:0 is even a good result when you sum everything up

DonAK said:

His lack of end product will always let him down.

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To be fair, the entire team lacked end product this match.

BBZ8800 said:

Crossing badly, passing badly, bad decisions etc.
He was only good in defense preventing counters.

After a few lost balls in the first 20-30 minutes, our players (Iniesta and Neymar) started to ignore him.
Alba was free a lot of times on the left, but Iniesta and Neymar passed the ball to the middle or to the right.

So, we have a funny situation sometimes:
1. no one is passing the ball to RB Roberto in attack since he is useless
2. players gave up from Alba also later in the match, as a LB
3. Rakitic can't do anything with a ball lately
4. Suarez was alone and lost, miles away from our other players

Basically, we had only Messi, Neymar, Iniesta, Busi (and sometimes Rakitic) passing the ball around and Neymar/Messi trying to dribble past 45 opponents.
Pique, Umtiti, Alba, Roberto (and Raki to some extent) were either ignored by teammates or totally useless when they do get the ball.

So, basically, it was really hard to win against Juventus when we played with 4 players against 11 opponents.
0:0 is even a good result when you sum everything up

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Nobody is ignoring Alba.. Do you remember how did Messi end up in that 1v1 situation early where he missed? I think he was good today, maybe he lost his form due to injury and after not getting any time because of our mastermind manager but I could just wish we had another Alba on the right side..

I never have been a big fan of Alba.

Mendy from Monaco would be a good replacement. He's strong, fast and is good both defence and offence wise.

Why is it, the only time I see Alba in dangeorus positions is in that Messi lob where the whole opposing team is camped inside the box?

WHen marcelo is attacking the opponent, its a huge scramble with madird outnumbering the opponent and the defenders holding on for dear life.. Either we attack too slow on the build up, or Madrid's rivals don't track back (which ofc isn't true)

Don't you guys notice this? When Alba is close to their box, its when the opposing team already has a bus parked in the box.. Matter of fact, it always seems like we are outnumbered, everywhere on the pitch.

Idiotic catalan philosophy of Iniesta and Busquets help this, since they are stuck in 2010 where back passes were good plays. today transition is way more important, you have to take advantage of when the opponent isn't settled back.

Tite (Brazil's coach) talked about this the other day.. football concepts evolved a lot in just 5 years. everything today is scrambles and transition..

we are stuck in tiki taka caveman days

Our problems come down to the system or lack of thereof and the quality of talent we have is nowhere near as good as it should be for a team like ours. These days you look at us and it's just a sad sight.

We went from having a nice balanced system and overall balanced squad to a unbalanced squad with quite a few players that simply don't belong here. The system is non existent, and the tactical discipline makes you question why do we even have training sessions?

Iniesta is simply not the same player he once was due to age and injuries, Why are we still relying so heavily on him? we should have found a good successor to Iniesta, so we can start slowly phasing him out like we did with Xavi. Hell we still haven't even found a decent replacement for Xavi yet.

as for Alba, he's been a dodgy LB for quite sometime now. in the 2014/15 season, he was good but since then he's slowly been going back down hill again. His defending has been wildly inconsistent and his attacking has been letting us down as well.

abiabi said:

Idiotic catalan philosophy of Iniesta and Busquets help this, since they are stuck in 2010 where back passes were good plays. today transition is way more important, you have to take advantage of when the opponent isn't settled back.

Tite (Brazil's coach) talked about this the other day.. football concepts evolved a lot in just 5 years. everything today is scrambles and transition..

we are stuck in tiki taka caveman days

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Of course that a football is evolving every year.
But majority around our club are in a denial phase.
We believe that our system and formation are still out of this world, the same as 7-8 years ago.

We are putting the blame on Lucho and the players, in terms: our system is good, we just need better players to execute it.

Well, no.

1. Our board is bad
2. Our coach is not competent
3. Half of our players are average
4. A lot of things in our system and tactics are outdated for a Cl level. It works against midtable la liga teams, but not anymore against european teams

We will either have to move on to some new version of Barca's dna style.
Or if we still want to follow Pep's Barca (because we are still stuck in that era on so many levels), then a lot of Pep's principles will need updates, upgrading and evolving.

Barcas post Pep and Pep's teams post Barca played in a Cl 9 times. Those two teams managed to reach only one CL final in those 9 attempts (Barca with 5 attempts, Pep with 4 attempts).

So, imo, it is not only about wrong players for this famous system, but about this famous system not being good enough on the highest level against physical, fast and counterattacking teams.

He was so fucking terrible in offence the entire game but ends up setting Leo up for the winner.

I thought he did very well. You have to remember he had Paco and, later, Gomes on his flank.

Need not be involved in attack, he left so much space on their right flank man! Poor game. Can't complain about the final pass though

Was nowhere to be seen when Real were attacking and could barely pick a pass when Barca had it.

Nice pick out at end though.

Yeah, I think he was hit or miss... In the second half his flank was exploited way too often...

I agree with most here but he also had some important clearances in the middle. Couple of headers and a good slide tackle if I remember correctly.

abiabi said:

.....we are stuck in tiki taka caveman days

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Nonsense. Barca aren't doing badly because they play too much tiki taka, but because they don't play it anymore. Barca haven't played that tiki taka style in 4 seasons. Since the Tito season this play has been eroding to this current iteration where current team can't triangulate and string quick passes in tight windows to save their lives.

Even now, when they somehow manage to do some of it by some miracle, you see the stellar results. Watch Messi's first goal today to understand how powerful and effective the patient buildup followed by the quick triangulation and intricate passing can be. Aka, the tiki taka.

Barca just need a better coach, and better players both in midfield and at fullback to return to the buildup from the middle, with passing, with triangulation, with speed, with intricacy.

According to France Football, PSG are interested in Alba.