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It would be good to rest these three, but . . . Resting Suarez is a lot easier if Dembele is available. Against a strong opponent, vtough to sit Alba, given the very weak backup. Maybe this should wait until Huesca.

This time, there is no one worst player, the forwards, midfielders and defenders must share flop on the match for that defensive display.

De Jong better assimilate quickly into this squad. Really could have used him yesterday.

OK, now it is time to rotate in the #5 and #6 midfielders, as soon as this next game. Must try Alena and Roberto (at different times), for better or worse.

I felt so sorry for him yesterday. Still, he must rotate in at both CB positions, he will just have to improve.

This is a team that is difficult to beat. The high line on defense looked suicidal yesterday. Umtitti and Lenglet were humiliated, but where was the 6 second rule, why did Vil have so much time and space to make those perfect outlet passes? Barca must defend at every position, everyone who...

Good lineup. Now, these guys have to perform. I'm not confident that this group will score any goals.

Vidal should be refreshed now. Recently, Arthur has been showing he should play less. These next two games and Huesca are the time to split up the playing time, let both Rakitic and Busquets rest some, use Vidal, Arthur, Alena and Roberto all at least some.

Messi is playing crazy well now, so he will not want to sit. The time for that might be between the two Man U games. Before the season, Suarez asked for rest before CL games. That will happen. S Alba has no backup. Resting him has been disastrous. Valverde has only bad options controlling...

Jovic in, Coutinho and Boatang out. No other changes needed for the forwards and midfielders, with De Jong coming. Some midfielder could leave because of excess numbers.

Well, more and more he looking like he has a roll on this team. The team needs aggression, speed, fresh legs to come in late off the bench Check, check, check. Hope to see him late in most games for the run-in.

Well, he is not looking like someone who should be on the field for the big games coming up. He's just too passive. Good first year with the club. He may well be a first 11 guy down the road, just not quite yet.

By far the best Barca midfielder yesterday. If two Rakitics were on the team, both would start.

Valverde has gotten lots of stick for switching to 4-4-2 with Dembele out. I mean, you can see that this switch was insane, Betis practically shut out Barca. So, enough of the 4-4-2. For Espanol, Dembele is out, and quite possibly Suarez is out. So, time for both Coutinho and Malcom? No...

Man U would like Suarez to be dropped. Suarez has been missing lots of chances recently. Can't you see that the key part of that sentence is "lots of chances"? You do not get that with lessor strikers. Even with the misses, Suarez is scoring plenty. More importantly, he contributes to a...

Valverde likes to play his best players. The 4-4-2 in the last game liberated the Barca offense: the team was much better able to attack than it usually is in the 4-3-3. The reason the formation worked so well, as usual, was because the players played so well. Vidal and Arthur had fantastic...

Who was that guy today with the mohawk, wearing Vidal's Jersey? He was playing defense as good as we usually see from Vidal (damn good), but his passing and movement on offense were not at all like the Vidal we have seen this year. He was devastating. I'd say that was the best game by any...

If you're going to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs. This is a very rich team, some very expensive acquisitions will work out better than others. Why is there not more talk about the amazing bargains Barca got buying Lenglet and Arthur? Before that, Rakitic and Umtitti were also...

Something like this is what I would go with. The team is not weaker when you make these types of starter changes among the regular players. Must rotate among the first 15 for most of the remaining Liga games. You have kickass talent like Coutinho, Vidal, Semedo and Umtitti beyond the gala 11...

Dembele has shown multiple times this year that he can come in as a sub and make a huge impact. When Malcom has come in as a sub, his record is nowhere near as good, really quite mediocre. Dembele had medical clearance to play, which was not decided by Valverde. Of course Dembele was the...