One almost roots for Las Palmas to nick this.
La Liga 2017/18
- Thread starter Santi_Mesut_Alexis_87
- Start date
Dembélé looks out of it.
Lahoz vindicated
Can't believe the league is open again! Barca have literally thrown it away like in 2016. What's up with them collapsing everytime in this period of the season?
Is this the same Calleri who kept falling over at West Ham?!
Just 5 points between 1st and 2nd.
Why I can't watch La Liga. I won't even bother with El Classico, the play acting, ref surrounding and card waving is just too much, no flow to the games at all.
They've not been that great for most of the season really. Very Messi dependant and just nicking games here and there and now it's balancing out with them drawing a few more than before xmas.
They are faking injuries to save their lives, no question about it. I don’t like Barcelona but I hate players like this even more. Spanish football in a nutshell
next game is between Barca and Atletico too.
Atletico have EL. It will take its toll.
Anyone think Valverde is over dependent on Messi ? They have started the season well and they have the players to run past most teams anyway but I'm struggling to see Valverde tactical work now. Messi seems to be the one doing 99% of the work.
Has he had a good game in a Barca shirt yet ? He's looked so out his depth for the rare handful of games i've seen him play for them
Consider it marked. Nice jinx yo.
Valverde is a joke! This Barca side is far worst than Luis Enrique's from the last year. I honestly expect a grandioze failure for them at the end of the season.And i mean they will win.. nothing!
They definitely look tired. Lack of rotation and starting Messi in every game may come back to haunt them.
Their run in is very easy after Atletico.
Possibly Seville away will be tricky and maybe Valencia at home. Will Real Madrid even take El Clasico seriously as they could be playing a champions league semi final around that time.
Atletico have much harder run in...got Villareal, Alaves (anothe win tonight), Real Madrid and Real Sociedad all aways so can't see them making up the points difference.
Possibly Seville away will be tricky and maybe Valencia at home. Will Real Madrid even take El Clasico seriously as they could be playing a champions league semi final around that time.
Atletico have much harder run in...got Villareal, Alaves (anothe win tonight), Real Madrid and Real Sociedad all aways so can't see them making up the points difference.
they'll just beat Atletico and make it +8 again.
What's going on with Barca? I thought they were running away with the league but there's only 5 points separating them from Atletico now. Would it be too far fetched to say Chelsea could knock them or of the Champions League?
just as planned
Of course Real will take it seriously if they can give a helping hand in stopping Barca. It also probably helps them to play without pressure and probably puts extra pressure on Barca too knowing their circumstances.
If Atletico win this weekend they will have the tie-breaker and the momentum. It would be 50/50 IMO.
If you don't like it why always bashing here, everybody knows Spanish football is different, for instance I like more football from Southern Europe and I don't go to EPL threads or Championship threads calling out horrible decisions by referees regarding tackles.
Don't like it don't bother coming always with the same type of arguments, there isn't superior football cultures, just different.
Yes, Barca have yet to lose in La Liga, and Chelsea can’t park the bus like they did in the first leg.
I feel people are going slightly overboard with criticism of Valverde, he is what he is, essentially a mid-table manager throughout his career.
When i say mid-table, i don't mean it in a sense of value judgement, but more along the lines of his coaching approach. He has worked in a string of clubs where he was expected to make the best of what he has had at his disposal. When you look at it from that angle, his decision making and overall performance so far make much more sense.
They still have an easier schedule than ATM, and obviously a home game against them where they are still favorites. I just don't see Atlético maintaining current winning streak until the end of the season, they're bound to drop some points sooner or later.
When i say mid-table, i don't mean it in a sense of value judgement, but more along the lines of his coaching approach. He has worked in a string of clubs where he was expected to make the best of what he has had at his disposal. When you look at it from that angle, his decision making and overall performance so far make much more sense.
They still have an easier schedule than ATM, and obviously a home game against them where they are still favorites. I just don't see Atlético maintaining current winning streak until the end of the season, they're bound to drop some points sooner or later.
I think as long as Barca push to at least avoid defeat against Atletico, they'll be fine. Their winning run will end eventually, as mentioned they have some really hard games coming up.
Coutinho ruined the chemistry
They'll still win the league.
But as I've said before I don't think they'll win the CL. They're effective but rely far too much on Messi for... everything. Today's line up wasn't great. Four CMs with Messi and Suarez uptop. No wingers no proper pace out wide. Same approach as against Chelsea. Also Suarez isn't the player he used to be so it's all Messi.
But as I've said before I don't think they'll win the CL. They're effective but rely far too much on Messi for... everything. Today's line up wasn't great. Four CMs with Messi and Suarez uptop. No wingers no proper pace out wide. Same approach as against Chelsea. Also Suarez isn't the player he used to be so it's all Messi.
They have 3 of the top 10 most expensive players ever alongside him in attack, one of the best defensive midfielders of all time and the defense that’s conceded the least amount of goals in 2017/18. It’s all Messi? If Suarez took penalties he’d be their top goalscorer. You’re massively underrating their team just like a lot of people were doing at the start of the season.
They have to be the favorites to win the Champions League and they’ll rightfully be disappointed with anything less, especially since Madrid have won 3 in the past 4 years
Pretty much spot on, Suarez has been very important, especially when Messi went through a mini goal drought recently.
We aren't favourites for the CL though, City and probably still Madrid would be ahead of us despite their shit league form. Valverdes insistence on playing Paulinho and Vidal is worrying, especially against the top teams in Europe
I think City will go far but then fall apart against a good team. Bayern and Madrid/PSG are the only threats to Barcelona imo and since Barcelona seem to always get the better of Madrid head to head...
The best thing for Barcelona is that Atlético got knocked out and Juve seem like they’ll also go out, that’s the kind of team that they’ve been getting knocked out by.
Of those 3, Coutinho won't play a single minute in the UCL and we're in March, yet Dembelé hasn't payed more than 400 minutes with Barcelona due to injuries.
Beyond the defenders and Busquets, this team will live or die depending on Messi and Suarez but there's 40 meter black hole between Busquets and Suarez, and that's where Messi will have to win the key games almost all by himself. Rakitic is the only one that's reliable to at least do an ok job with and without the ball every game, Iniesta, Paulinho or even Denis might have one game where they pop off but that's basically a 66% chance of having a subpar midfielder every game, then there's Dembele which I personally don't expect anything from this year (expectations, not certain about this), and the rest are Gomes, Aleix and Alcacer, I expect 0 from them at UCL level.
Our best chance, imo, would be to play a Sergi, Rakitic and Busquets midfield with Semedo stablished in the RB, but that hasn't been the case all season long, so I doubt a pragmatic guy like Valverde is going to reinvent the wheel in QF/SF/Final with players that didn't play together much.
As I always say, most modern games are won in the midfield, and we've invested too much on keeping Iniesta as a focal point of our squad when he should've been a impact sub for maybe the last two seasons, we're not up to standards there, same thing that happened with Xavi at the end of his career with Barcelona, took Rakitic's arrival and putting him on reduced minutes to strengthen that treble team, but we've been at the same point for two years.
What's the attraction of Spain's managers for reviving the flat 4-4-2? I mean, it makes sense for Simeone's Atlético kind of football, but it looks really wrong for Barcelona and even Valencia.
Nah don't see them winning the CL either.
Same problems as last season I reckon. They struggle to create away so can see a two goal defeat away and not quite turning it around at Camp Nou.
This is one of the least memorable Barca teams of recent times.
Football works in cycle. 3 at the back is to counter 4-3-3, then 4-4-2 to counter 3 at the back. I said this like last season. And this 4-4-2 is not flat. There are not much of real wingers. It's at time like a 4-2-2-2 or 4-3-2-1... The wide midfielders are narrower than your traditional wingers
All that is irrelevant. Just watch them and its obvious that they are ridiculously over reliant on Messi going forward. Busquets isn't an attacker. Coutinho and Dembele haven't settled in yet. Surely you know these things?
They are reliant on Messi because he's Messi and he's their best player, same as every team with a star player. But saying that this team is all Messi and that they're not going to win the Champions League because of it is nonsense.
Dembele and Coutinho not settled in are better than nearly all of La Liga's forwards and Suarez has been the best striker in the world for the past few months. Their defense has conceded the least amount of goals out of any team on the planet this season too, Alba's been the best fullback in the world, Ter Stegen one of the top 2 keepers in the world, Busquets has been the best defensive midfielder in the world, etc. I don't know how you can look at this team and say 'it's all Messi' when the whole team has been playing the way they've been playing.
I'm only saying this because it's the same conversation that happened during the summer, a lot of people here were treating guys like Alba, Pique, Busquets, Rakitic, Suarez, etc. as if they were some average players for a top team and I said the same thing I'm saying now. These players are geting taken for granted and they're not getting the praise they deserve.
Just seen that Las Palmas have sold Viera!
Not at all. Your entire post is built on paper rather than the ground reality. I'm not underrating anyone. I think Coutinho and Dembele are excellent footballers. I rate Suarez as the best CF in (very) recent memory. I think their defense had been superb. And Busquets will to down as one of the greats of his generation.
However, none of that negates the fact evident from watching this football team is over reliant on Messi. And to claim that it's the same as any team and their star player I rubbish. Watch any other top team and they don't rely overly on one bloke to drop deep and dictate, create chances and score goals. Yes Messi is unique in that he does all of that which means you're going to utilize those skills. But the extent to which I see them offering not enough in attack from other areas is different.
So the defence and Busquets are irrelevant to this specific discussion. The lack of wide threat like a (inform) Bale, Sane, Robben etc. is a problem coupled with Suarez's tendancy these days to score 7 in 2 and then look like garbage in the next 2.
Of course I believe Coutinho and Dembele can change all of that but as of now I see an over dependence. These are a rich man's problems obviously given they're still a terrific team. But the margins at the very top are slight.
Suarez has scored in 45% of the games he's played this season, his goal distribution through games is completely normal and it's not true he's scoring goals in bunches any more than any other goalscorers do. Messi has scored in 50% of games as a comparison. Of course if you exclude their defense they're going to lack a wide threat when on the left they have the best fullback in the world going forward so far this season and on the right they have Semedo and Sergi Roberto who do a very good job themselves. Their fullbacks are the players who provide that width.
This wasn't my point though, you said you didn't believe they will win the Champions League because they're too reliant on Messi when they've actually won the Champions League before being as reliant on him as they are now. This team played without Messi in Turin against the Champions League finalists and were the better team without Messi, Dembele or Coutinho on the pitch. Obviously he's their best player and if they want to win a competition like the Champions League he'll have to be at his best but that's the case for pretty much any football team.
I completely disagree with your second paragraph, Barcelona do not overly rely on Messi to drop deep, create and score goals. Suarez has pretty much been scoring just as much as Messi this season and Messi's actually having his worse goalscoring season in 10 years. Neymar's been the only player this season who both creates and scores more than Messi, but there are several players who create more and there are several players who score more. Imo the drop in quality would be a lot bigger if Liverpool lost Salah or Tottenham lost Kane for example.