CL | Round 4: Manchester City - FC Barcelona 3-1

[hulinat]

Could have easily been much more though, it reminded me of a el classico when Mou was still coach. Think it was the supercopa return or copa de rey. Could ahve easily been 5-1 as could have been the score tonight.

we could have score more than 1 too but we didnt. could have also scored 10 goals in the 1st game but nah.

 

[akaranzo]

Don't know what to say except that we have 8 fucking midfielders. Out of this 8 we have 3 which are good, 1 who is playing RB and 4 who are f... useless!!! I agree that Gomes was ok today and that Rafinha is playing good this season BUT no one can say that Gomes, Arda, Rafinha and Denis are type of players Barca needs and ABOVE all they are all SLOW AS F..K

If you think carefully we have Iniesta and Roberto who are not slow and others are F..K turtles and only Rakitic and Busi are capable of hiding that by having other qualities.

We will win nothing this year and all because of disasterous scouting and buying policy.

Our squad is fantastic on paper. We have great midfielders that most teams dream of having. Losses like these can only be blamed on the manager. Our tactics were all over the place and they've been like that for a lot of the games this season and last season. A lot of the time MSN just win the game for us by sheer individual quality. The matches where they can't or don't do that is when we see Lucho for what he really is, a pretty average manager. Convinced that if Pep was our manager right now, players like Gomes, Arda, Rafinha and Denis would be praised by every Barca fan. That's the big difference between Pep and Lucho - Pep makes the players great, Lucho needs the players to make him seem great.

 

[gatsu]

DEbruyn position shifting, to better exploit the the weakness of our midfield, perfect pressing (zone), in game tactical adaptation, in April mars city's pep will be a beast.

And one more time nothing from our genius coach no response, ah bringing Arda to widing the gap in our midfield, brillant.

 

[Neeraj]

Result doesn't matter. But as I posted in the granada thread, the warning signs are all there. A draw here would have tapered over the very obvious cracks. Sevilla, who are better than city,will wreck us.

 

[Bardh]

Here's how our management think:

We really need defenders so we can compete with a good defence next season...... they go and buy a striker for 30m and midfielder for 40m.

THIS. It sickens me that the coach, technical director and the president don't realize the *urgent* needs to buy a world-class quality defender, to stop playing it short at all costs, and to defend deeper. I mean the argument that Barca's defense has to go high to support the attack is the most ridiculous ever. If players like MSN really need support from defense... then how do other teams score goals at all? Just stick the f*ck back.

 

[Total-Football]

A humble pie we badly need.. we gotta thank man city for that.. we played our best football this season during first half.. knocked their socks of the pitch with total football.. pressed them everywhere, bullied thier midfielfers and created chances for fun.. but we didnt have the legs to do it again in the second half.. we have to fix our fitnes issues.. only that explais the outrageoys disparities of the first and second half.

 

[Barcilliant]

This will be Luchos last season.

He is clearly out of ideas and MSN cannot bail him out all the time.

Our midfield are a bunch of lampposts. We should probably play 5-5 defence and attack because the midfield are useless.

 

[snowy]

Credit to City, they were magnificent. We on the other hand were absolutely awful after the 1-1 goal. Pep simply outsmarted Lucho today and showed why he's the best manager in the world. Luckily this loss doesn't exactly have catastrophic repercussions for us.

All their players were playing in perfect unison. They made very few mistakes whereas we made so many, a few of which they capitalized on. + it really looked like they were outpacing our defense and midfield at every turn. gulp and it's not like we weren't trying! Need to come up with a new playbook cuz this one ain't working. MSN were forced once again to track back all the way to the center line most of the time.

 

[Raketa10]

Our squad is fantastic on paper. We have great midfielders that most teams dream of having. Losses like these can only be blamed on the manager. Our tactics were all over the place and they've been like that for a lot of the games this season and last season. A lot of the time MSN just win the game for us by sheer individual quality. The matches where they can't or don't do that is when we see Lucho for what he really is, a pretty average manager. Convinced that if Pep was our manager right now, players like Gomes, Arda, Rafinha and Denis would be praised by every Barca fan. That's the big difference between Pep and Lucho - Pep makes the players great, Lucho needs the players to make him seem great.

Our midfield is tottaly unbalanced. We have 8 midfielders and no one can replace Iniesta or Busquets or even Rakitic! That is not a great midfield that is ABSOLUTE disasterous scauting. Maybe our new midfielders are good players but combination of them is PURE DISASTER. We basically have 4 AM players and in 4-3-3 system you DO NOT NEED 4 atacking midfield players!!!

Iit's like we have 4 Fabregas in our team.

Oh and I am 100% sure Pep would not have bought Arda or Gomes.

 

[Bardh]

DEbruyn position shifting, to better exploit the the weakness of our midfield, perfect pressing (zone), in game tactical adaptation, in April mars city's pep will be a beast.

And one more time nothing from our genius coach no response, ah bringing Arda to widing the gap in our midfield, brillant.

Luis Enrique was totally out of his depth. Just stood there watching wondering what was going on. You could see from his reactions how perceptive Pep was and how he dramatically shifted the focus of his team in counter-attacks in the second half, which basically sealed the game. I think it's high time we need a *different* coach, one which doesn't follow Barca's philosophy to death but brings his own ideas, especially in strengthening the defense.

 

[Total-Football]

Against sevilla we have to finish the game in the first half its a must..

 

[Ahmedd]

You can't win sh*t with bad midfielders and Lucho's tactics

 

[MagIX]

Even at the camp nou, untill the red card, the were better than us.....
This match showed us our known limits

 

[Vlom]

Gonna be a painfully loooong season I'm afraid..

We look like shit, just chaos.

 

[gatsu]

Against sevilla we have to finish the game in the first half its a must..

Today the problem was not the fitness but a tactical change from pep mainly by replacing Kevin in the center their midfield gained more options and speed, this is why our midfield was overwhelmed. We used to do the same when Pep was our coach.