Liga | Round 2: Deportivo Alaves - FC Barcelona 0-2

Someone has to ask Valverde about his decision to play Roberto in RB, I want to know his explanation for that one.
All the attacks of Alaves came from Roberto's side. He is slow, has poor positioning and can't defend at all!
Why didn't Valverde take him off after he got a yellow card, especially knowing how slow he is and any late tackle could have sent him off.
So Roberto on a yellow seems to be the better option for Valverde than Semedo! What's going on?
Put Roberto in RB position against a better team and see what happens! Alaves just parked the bus and let Barca play some rondos and despite this they were able to create some attacks through the Roberto street in Barca's defense! Playing Roberto as RB is an invitation for the opponents to score goals.

Paco actually improved the attacking play when he came on instead of the useless Deulofeu.
Pique seems to be in a very bad form, not focused at all and he needs to find a solution for that.

https://understat.com/match/7891

Confident enough, but still by 1 almost one player, 60% of xG by Messi and next top-2 players are defenders: Alba (0.34 xG), Pique (0.18 xG).

Disappointed by Valverde. Roberto at RB is really a retarded decision and Vidal at RW is at similar level.

I hope he shows something else during the season, because this is the same old shit we saw from Enrique last year.

Typical BS straight out of the Lucho era. Crappy starting XI, zero penetration from the midfield and in the end relying on pure luck to bail us out. Everything went our way tonight, if the luck on both sides was even tonight we probably would've drew 1-1.

Very lucky today , defence dreadful once again. Team is nothing without Messi and he doesnt look happy.

Solid match.

I asked the question in the chat would Barca look this good last season without Neymar and Suarez at Vitoria.
So yeah, bear this in mind.

We looked in control and much more like before we signed Neymar. More team-play and more control. Alaves had 2 great counters and that was that.

Ok. I am confused by two things.
I haven't watched the match (wife took me shoping for hours and hours...)

I have tracked the match on Sofascore.
It looked like we pwned them big time.

Stats are great. Messi looked superman.

I watched 5 matchflash youtube videos.
Alaves had some chances, that slide on 2nd post.
But it again looked like we owned their asses. Pique looked lost. MAtS saved his ass.

So,
Here I read like they could beat us?
People shit on Raki while he has rather decent/realy good stats on Sofascore...

So what is up?

They couldn't beat us. We were dominating throught. They had 2 chances on counter and one of those was offside.

Alaves was always going to be tough away match and we won without too much fuss without Suarez and shiny new signings.

Ok. So it was like it looked on Sofa and youtube clips. We owned them. Great because it is a seroius away match.
Great

Bojan said:

They couldn't beat us. We were dominating throught. They had 2 chances on counter and one of those was offside.

Alaves was always going to be tough away match and we won without too much fuss without Suarez and shiny new signings.

Click to expand...

Same with previous match. Ter Stegen got barely tested. It seems defensively we are not that terrible after all.

I am starting to get 'season 2014/2015 treble' vibes where we weren't quite there yet at the beginning of the season but we were having a lot of clean sheets.

I thought we played quite well honestly, with Dembele Suarez and hopefully one more midfield signing we could do really well this season

I can see what Valverde is trying to do obviously.

-Hold onto possession more

-Stay Compact

-Pressing on/off the ball.

Imagine if he had a couple of Midfielders who can create as well. that can replace Rakitic and the aging Iniesta. ''

Solid Structure Organization over Chaos that we have experienced under Lucho.

This was a great match.. however, if they had scored that first counter.. the 1 v 1 the game would've been a different game... very hard to come back against these park the bus ass teams.. glad we got the win.. people say why don't we play better? It's tough against these teams that just sit back and defend and we don't have ALL the players... that are quite comfortable in tight spaces and also we don't have Xavi.. and the ability to constantly press isn't there.. oh I miss good ole Pep days... sometimes rakitic is scared to make those passes that xavi makes and i don't expect him to but he's just not daring..we need daring midfielders.

#1.. idk why vidal is on this team.. he didn't do squat.. like idk why he was in the line up.. i truly truly truly hope that Semedo becomes a starter for sure for sure... idk why he doesn't trust him yet.. that lad is awesome..

#2... these teams are very comfortable sitting in front of their defense.. it's irritating sometimes

#3... the experiment of the 4-2-3-1 was intriguing.. idk how i feel about it.. it sure did give our team a different dimension but once again vidal was useless as a right winger..

#4... Thank God for messi.. idk why messi always has to come back in the midfield to do their jobs.. ronaldo can sleep up front and just wait for a tap in and crazy people say he's the best b/c of a tap in.. stupidity at best..soo annoying.. i hope we're able to get coutinho... and seri.. Seri is the closest distributer of the ball to xavi... i'm saying yea he's had bad games for Nice.. but once again its tough b/c just b/c you're a good player in general doesn't mean you'll be good for Barcelona.... Arda for example

overall, won't complain much 2 games, 6 points.. sitting pretty at the top.. we have to stay there at the top

Good game, considering the lack of receiving/shooting quality Messi had to pass to. I like the way Valverde has the players switching positions so freely, almost constantly. This takes good advantage of the skill level and flexibility of this squad. Positions are passe, total football.

As far as S. Roberto at RB goes, against teams that are not real offensive threats, the most important thing is that he is on the field. Barca got a lot going on the right side today, big improvement in that regard.

Rak is good in the double pivot.

Next time we meet, for the Match Chat against the Pericos Maricones, it would be around September 9th, after the FIFA stoppage. We should know then wether we have Coutinho or not. I really like Di María. However I heard that his transfer fee is ~€60+. For that fee, PSG can stuff it! If that is so, we should really look into Seri again plus Lautaro Martinez the Argentine "9" that Atlético, Mónaco, and Fiorentina are after. I believe that Racing Club of Argentina wants ~ €20M+. My team in Argentina is Independiente, the arch enemy of Racing. One more thing, traditions, traditions, traditions.