₦airaland Forum

Is this when the decision not to buy a CB start to haunt the team? Pique out, Puyi out - lets see how Tito manages.

I'm Happy for Adriano that he's getting These games. Under Pep, we may have Seen Busquests as CB or 3-4-3. None of that from Tito so far. As JP noted, Tito is doing a very good job so far.

I'm surprised to See Tello starting - Tito likes d Boy too much.

We are facing our first parked bus under Tito, lets see how we do.

I'll be watching how Emenike doee against the other teams in this group, tonight I don't wish him luck

AjanleKoko: Welcome back Stealthy

Yeah, Fontas is rather slow, and should have been sold or loaned. According to Zubi, the right opportunity didn't come.
But I wouldn't dismiss him entirely. A left-footed player who can play at both left-back or centre-back is a nice option to have.

I would give him games. Starting with the Copa Del Rey, then maybe Liga games, coming on as a sub in games that have been sewn up. But Bartra needs to start playing right away.

Lol, thanks...me and my frequent absences!

Talking about CB, did you guys see Botia playing for Sevilla against Real Madrid? The guy was a beast and he's been consistent with Sporting and the Spanish U-21 team. I'm still surprised that the buy-back clause on him wasn't used.

Good to see us 8 pts ahead of Madrid already...while it's early in the season, I expect Madrid's tough UCL group to distract them some and affect their league performance. Can Valencia even knock them to 3rd place? Ok, I'm dreaming too much...

medjai: Yeah good performance from Cesc in the false-9 role tonight. Glad to see that we have a good alternative when Messi needs some rest.

Also, when he shifted back to midfield later in the game, he linked up well with Messi and gave a great assist to Villa as well. Also assisted the 1st goal.

I don't agree that Cesc was good in the false 9 position. The team laboured most of the 1st 60 mins, before Messi came on. Whenever Messi is not playing, I'll rather just see us play with a normal striker (ie Villa) upfront rather than trying to force-fit midfielders into the false 9 role, which is almost tailor-made for Messi. You need a fast and lethal striker like Messi playing upfront, not Cesc (who isn't nearly as fast) - not to say Cesc is a bad player, I'll just rather have in playing in midfield and creating those chances for the strikers.

AjanleKoko: Bartra and Fontas will have to start getting games. Bartra, at least. Montoya was very good today. A bit of naivete shown, but overall quite solid.

Forget Fontas - the boy should have been sent on loan at least, during the summer. He is slow and doesn't read the game well. This is usually the dilemma with promoting players early sometimes. While Fontas has been sitting in the senior team bench, Bartra, Muniesa and Montoya were playing regular matches with the B team and you can see that they've effectively overtaken Fontas now.

Other players were good though:
Pedro put in a good shift, Messi was not his mercurial self, but I've always said we cannot depend on him to always lift the team - other people need to pick up the slack when Messi isn't firing on all cylinders.

Masch, Pique, Alba were ok in defence, but the team is still very vulnerable to set pieces (again, a well known problem that the club doesn't try to solve). Every time Valencia got a decent ball in, you could feel our players getting nervous.

Song did very well...problem for him is that he will always have to wait for his turn, no matter how well he plays. Anyway, he knew that when signing sha.

It was a tough game. I'm happy we managed to get the 3 points - let's not forget that Madrid only got 1 point from Valencia 2 weeks ago. These 2 points may be the difference at the end of the season.

To the match and specific players: I like Adriano just for the fact that he's one of the few Barca players who bother trying to shoot. Ok, most of his shots end up in the stands, but once in a while you get a beauty like this one and such a vital goal too.

On to Cesc & Sanchez, I'm sure you all remember me castigating the club for buying the 2 players in 2011. For me, it was either of them. Cesc will eventually take over the midfield, so I don't mind him much - he just needs to focus. Cesc has actually not scored a single goal for Barca in 2012!

As for Sanchez, I've always had the feeling that the Barca scouts watched his performance in that 4-1 Udinese win of 2010-11 season and decided to buy him. To be fair, he is a very good player when he's not diving, but Barca bought this guy for $29m+11m variables...so the club could end up paying more for Sanchez than Real Madrid paid for Benzema, AC Milan paid for Ibra and ManU paid for Van Persie!

That's like buying a Toyota Prado for the price of a Maseratti...

AjanleKoko: ^^
I don't know about the 'good draw'.
We have never travelled well to Russia, and Benfica is a decent side that can pose problems.
Celtic would likely be taken apart at the Camp Nou, but the away game may provide a different kind of challenge for the boys.
We should fix all those defensive issues before we face sides that are very direct, and would likely park the bus when they face Barca.

What would be a good draw to you? Group D? lol

We got a good draw. Hopefully the trip to cold Moscow won't be too tedious.

Madrid have their hands full, but I'm not happy that Ajax and Dortmund landed in that group - these are 2 of my favourite UCL teams. I still remember the final of 1997 when Dortmund tore Juve apart. sadly, these days football is only about the richest clubs.

In any case, UCL should distrct Madrid so much that they start to drop league points from the group stages.

With our group thats not so strong, but also not very weak, at least Tito can afford to make some mistakes in the group stages and apply the lessons in the knock out stages.

chic2pimp: Yh the Midfield trio of Sergio, Song and either of Xavi/Iniesta woulda done the job.
However this is not the Barca way and most teams know this hence you'll always be vulnerable to counters.
I guess Tito would certainly have learnt some new things from 2days game. One of em' being you don't Always have to go gung-ho.

Yeah I agree with you.

chic2pimp: He has seen it and knows it all too well. The issue however is that there are not that many Quality defenders in the market.

The few Quality ones left would probably cost an arm and a leg considering they'll have to bought from a Rival team.

There is one player that have always championed would fit into the Barca system perfectly......Mats Hummels. The Best Young Defender in the world bar none(also in the top 5 CB).

The downside however is that he would cost anywhere between £25-30M and I really don't know If the Barca board are willing to spend that much on a defender considering your current financial position.

We can get good defenders at a bargain if our scouts will stop looking only at established stars in the biggest clubs in the biggest leagues.

But what I meant in my previous post was not so much to buy another player (highly unlikely right now), but to set up the team such that we are less vulnerable to counters. For example, the centre backs didn't have to push up so much in this match. We could also have slowed the tempo from the start knowing Madrid had no choice of sitting back.

Cristalz: There really are no complaints. Barca gifted RMD the advantage when there were 22 men on the pitch.
But twaz a really good fight in the end. Still a team to be proud of.

Very nice summary from the only girl on the thread.

fredoooooo: any good goalkeeper to buy ?

Actually if we wanted to buy a goalie (to replace Pinto and put some pressure on Valdes), there are a lot of good keepers in the Bundesliga who would jump at a chance to join Barca even as reserves.

Tim Wieser. Hoffenheim
Rene Adler. Hamburg
Rafael Scaffer. Nuremberg

But goalkeeper is very low on the club's buying priorities now. The main objective (rightly or wrongly) is to buy Neymar next summer.

Funny enough Valdes was quite good tonight - he kept the scoreline reasonable. Well, it was the least he could do after handing Madrid a lifeline last week.

Real really blitzed us in the 1st half with their incicive counter attacks. Really reminded me of the UCL semi against Valencia in 2000 and the UCL 1st knockout round against Chelsea in 2005.

Fortunately, this match was neither a UCL knockout match nor a 6-point league decider. I hope Tito sees the vulnerabilities that exist in our defence and does the needful to plug the holes.

I liked the fact that even with 10 men, possession improved in the 2nd half and we were able to play our own game to an extent.

Transfers: I don't see Villa going to Juve. Just doesn't fit.

Bojan to Milan. Milan being shrewd again - this could actually work well for both parties. With Pato's frequent injuries, Cassano and Ibra gone and the other strikers not exactly on fire, he should get some valuable time to prove himself. I still think the boy will come good.

Afellay may be leaving as well. I'll like him to stay, with Tito rotating some more. If we sell Afellay, it better be for some good cash. Cuenca is the one I feel we should sell - he will not be anything but a back up.

Madrid: interesting to see them struggling to get points especially against getafe which normally lies down to get beaten by Madrid. If la liga teams can play with all their might against Madrid like they do to Barca (Madrid now the champions, make them get some hot reception too lol), we wil have an interesting season.

I expect the 2nd cup leg to be a 1-1 draw. Madrid will be focused on the league and Barca should do enough to see the victory through.

The win against Osasuna was good, considering we lost this same fixture last season. The team has become more direct this season and for me that's a good development. Against Osasuna we played with just 2 midfielders at some points. Under Pep, midfield was king and sometimes it felt like hitting 70-80% possession was an end in itself. Under Tito, it is clear that winning is the target not necessarily possession.

Eyoniggar, so u don wed ehn? You no come invite us make we sing the Barca anthem for there?!

Congrats man. How is the madam? Hope she's a barca fan too lol!

Yahoo1 (odd miniker I have to say)...I agree that Alves needs to shave

I also don't like the 3-4-3. Its too risky unless you play 3 CBs. But more important, the players always look confused and don't always appear to know which position they should be playing in. This lack of rythn is what I hate most about 3-4-3.

On to our purchase of Song: I'm still surprised that the club spends so much on a sub. I don't agree that prices go up simply because Barca is interested. The prices are up because our scouts always go for established stars in big clubs. Look at how much Real Madrid, Mab U have paid for players lately (Sahin, Chicharito, Podolski, etc) and you see that clubs have generally seen Barca as mugus since the Ibra deal and they know Barca will go to any length to get a player it wants.

Ajanlekoko

Good points in ur post on transfers were u trying to beat my word count lol?!

Good start to the season. I don't recall any other season starting with a manita!

I like the fact that the team looks more direct, passing forward more than sideways, until we went 3-1 up when the guys started to take things easier, understandably.

[center][/center]Who Will Score For Barcelona This Season?

The question above may sound odd or irrelevant. After all, Barcelona is a team that scored 110 league goals and 34 UEFA Champions League goals last season, beating its own recent scoring records in both competitions. Barcelona also boasts of Messi, the player who could not stop scoring last season, breaking virtually every goal scoring record at club level. Surely there should be no questions asked of Barcelona’s scoring prowess.

Messi both a strength and a weakness
A careful analysis of last season shows that Barcelona should indeed be worried about its attack. In the league, Messi scored 50 out of Barcelona’s 110 goals. In UCL, Messi scored 14 out of Barcelona’s 34 goals. These are phenomenal figures for a single player; however for the squad the numbers are worrisome. A team cannot consistently rely on one player to score over 40% of its goals. While Messi’s 50 goals accounted for 45% of Barcelona’s league goals last season, Christiano Ronaldo’s 46 goals only accounted for 38% of Real Madrid’s 121 goals. Barcelona is more reliant on Messi than Real Madrid is on Ronaldo.

A look at Barcelona’s fantastic 2008-09 season shows that the goal distribution among the forwards was much better, with Messi scoring 30 league goals, Etoo 23 and Henry 19. Last season, Sanchez (12 goals) and Xavi (10 goals) were the top scorers after Messi, with most of the attackers misfiring when they were not injured. It is interesting to note that in the 2011-12 season, Barcelona only won competitions where Messi scored far less than 40% of the goals (ie the scoring load was better distributed).

Messi is Barcelona’s strongest point but over-reliance on Messi makes the team weak. There were periods last season when Messi could not perform at his best due to fatigue; yet he had to play 90 minutes in virtually every match. Messi played the more minutes than any Barcelona player including Valves. Teams will learn from the Chelsea playbook and realize that if they manage to stop Messi, the chances of Barcelona scoring are reduced by nearly 50%! The other attackers do not shoot or score enough to worry opposing defenders. Often, it is apparent that the other Barcelona attackers are looking to pass to Messi to score – they are too conservative to take a risk by going for goal themselves. Even David Villa, who was a prolific scorer for Valencia, has been surprisingly guilty of this.

Lack of Cutting Edge
A review of the distribution of Barcelona’s league goals last season shows that the team still struggled against defensive minded teams. While teams like Osasuna and Rayo Vallecano were blown away with high score-lines, Barcelona actually failed to score in more matches than in any other season under Guardiola.

Tactical teams such as Chelsea and recently Real Madrid have figured out a way to frustrate the 4-3-3 and the risky 3-4-3, by neutralizing the False 9. With Messi playing in the centre forward role, it is easy for these teams to mark him effectively without compromising their defensive formation. The solution for Barcelona would be for Messi to play a free role against these teams, much as he was deployed in 2008-09 when Etoo or Henry could slot into the CF position. Currently, only Messi plays as CF. It will be interesting to see how defences react if Messi moves to the right wing and a few defenders need to move from the centre of defence to try to neutralize him. However, someone else will need to step up to score when Messi creates. Who will this be?

Neither Sanchez nor Pedro has ever scored up to 15 goals in a league season; therefore it is difficult to see any of them scoring the 20+ goals that a second striker needs to score to shift some of the burden off Messi. Many people would argue that with Villa back in the squad, he will provide the alternate scoring route to Messi. However, this is a very optimistic position: Villa has not played a competitive football match in over 6 months and he is now on the wrong side of 30 – it is not realistic to expect him to light up La Liga and UCL this season. In addition, Villa was not exactly having a stellar season before he broke his leg last December. In the 15 league matches he played last season, Villa scored only 5 goals – if he went on to play 30 matches at that rate, he would have managed only as many goals as Xavi.

Making Changes Upfront
Barcelona needs to invest in a proven striker w[b]ho can score 20 or more goals a season (and also head the ball[/b], a skill all too lacking in current Barcelona forwards), but also willing to accept that he will not start every match. It would have been interesting to see how Soriano (who scored 33 goals with barca B in 2010-11) would fare with the senior team – unfortunately, the club sold him in the January transfer window, even though Villa broke his leg in December and Pedro was having fitness issues. Most potential strikers in Europe are either too expensive (Hulk, Falcao, Llorente, Cavani) or unlikely to fit into the Barcelona system. There are still some good options that would not break the bank though:

• Klass Jan Huntelaar: He has really matured in his time with Schalke and is currently one of the most prolific strikers in Europe – he was top scorer in the Bundesliga last season, marginally beating “Super Mario” was on good form. With his contract set to expire next summer, he can be bought for less than €20m. However, he is an ex-Madrid player and Barcelona may not want a player “stained” with the white of Madrid.
• Papiss Demba Cisse: The top scorer in the Bundesliga in 2010-11, Barcelona could have got him from Freiburg for about €12m last summer. However, he has moved to Newcastle and has been a wonderful revelation in the English Premier League in his first season. Any attempt to buy him now will cost about €20m. However, he can be lured with the prospect of playing UCL football.
• Robert Lewandowski: He currently plays in Dortmund, a team which plays an exciting, fast paced version of tiki taka. He is tall, good in the air and good with both feet. Like Huntelaar, his contract expires next summer and he can be bought for under €20m. This is probably the best option for Barcelona as he can be useful for a Plan B, while also performing well in the current system as a back-up to David Villa.

Buying a new striker will mean that one of the general purpose attackers will have to be released. The club should consider selling Cuenca who is not an exceptional player – he provides width, but Afellay also provides width and is better at shooting and dribbling. Tello should be loaned to one of the smaller clubs in La Liga or to Ajax. His game is currently too one-dimensional; however, he is clearly a skillful player with a lot of potential and playing in a smaller club that can guarantee constant playing time, without the pressure of Barcelona, will certainly do him some good.

In 2013, it is likely that the club will buy Neymar, considering all the comments coming from Barcelona-aligned papers in Spain. Villa may well leave in 2013 as well, considering he will have turned 32 and is unlikely to be operating on a level high enough to justify constant selection. Bojan is also scheduled to return to the club in 2013; however with his unimpressive performance so far with Roma, it will be best for Barcelona to sell him to a suitable buyer.

If Barcelona makes the right choice, the club and its supporters can look forward to a season where Messi will not be expected to repeat the unbelievable haul of 72 goals he scored in all competitions last season. The club can be assured of goals even when Messi is not scoring. In addition, the enlarged squad will ensure that the team is well rested at crucial stages of the season and the coach will not have to rely on desperate tactics like deploying inexperienced youngsters to face Real Madrid or forcing wingbacks to play as wide attackers.

[center][/center]Solving Barcelona’s Defensive Problems

Barcelona has been in the market for a defensive minded player since Keita left this summer, and rightly so too. There is no cover in the defensive midfield area and even in centre defence there are issues: the club’s stalwart defender, Puyol, has been battling with injuries over the last year. He missed several matches last season and missed Euro 2012 due to injuries. In addition, Puyol is 34 and is surely in his last couple of seasons for Barcelona. He is more liable to injuries at this age and it will be a welcome surprise if he is able to play more than half of Barcelona’s matches this new season.

The club has spent most of the summer transfer period chasing Javi Matinez of Athletic Bilbao and later, Alex Song of Arsenal. The premise is that Martinez can play both as a defensive midfielder and a centre back. The premise for Song is that he is a combative midfielder who can be used as back up for Busquests. Bilbao demanded €40m for Martinez while Arsenal has reportedly refused to let Song go for anything less than €18m.

It is surprising that the club has not considered that there is a player who can play as both defensive midfielder and centre back, yet will not cost the club anything. His name is Javier Mascherano. Masche was arguably Barcelona’s best CB last season. He started more league matches than any Barcelona player except Messi and Valdes and he played a crucial role in the season for Barcelona. Masche is also a solid defensive midfielder: he is the best tackler in the Barcelona side and he is excellent at distributing long range passes from the back. He is also an excellent shooter of the ball, being one of the few players who bothered to attempt shots in the UCL semi final exit to Chelsea, while his racked up high possession stats without shooting much at goal. Masche should be the player to rotate the defensive midfield role with Busquests, rotating between DMF and CB.

This brings one dilemma however: Masche is needed in central defence. If he is to cover defensive midfield as well, then surely the club needs to invest in another centre back. For this, there is a La Masia graduate: Alberto Botia. Botia played for Barcelona up to 2009, when he was loaned to Sporting Gijon. The deal was made into a permanent one in 2010, with Barcelona retaining a buy-back clause on the player for 3 years. There is a little snag though: Sporting sold Botia to Sevilla last week and it is unclear whether Barcelona retains any right to buy him anymore. Botia is 1.89m tall, which makes him taller than everyone in the Barcelona squad except Pique. Unlike Bartra and Fontas, Botia has played in nearly 80 La Liga games, bringing valuable experience to the team. He was a regular starter for Sporting in his time there and has been a regular in the Spanish U-21 and U-23 teams. Even if he turns out not to be a great defender, surely this deal will not be like any of the recent disastrous transfer deals, e.g. Chygrynsky bought for €25m and sold for €15m the next summer, or Caceres who was bought for €16.5m and sold to Sevilla for €3m (Sevilla sold him a year later for €8m!).

Alternatively, Barcelona can purchase the Greek international defender Kyriakos Papadopoulous from Schalke. He is a strong defender, a regular scorer from corner kicks (a valuable skill to bring to this team) and is one of the hottest young defenders in Europe, highly regarded after his performances in Euro 2012. Barcelona can purchase him for about €12m, much less than Martinez or Song would cost.

With another CB in the squad, Barcelona can actually deploy Masche in defensive midfield when playing against park-the-bus teams, with the tall CBs Pique and Botia/Kyriakos neutralizing the aerial threat posed by giant strikers such as Llorente, Andy Caroll or Gomez. Against park-the-bus teams, Masche’s speed, tackling, shooting and long range distribution may be more useful than Busquests’ calm, controlled, possession-assuring presence in DMF.

To add further depth to the squad, Barcelona should invoke the €10m buy back clause for Oriol Romeu from Chelsea. Romeu would have learnt a lot in the one year of playing with a top English team and with Chelsea buying a host of players in the summer, he will have limited opportunities to play, so might as well return to Barcelona. If he manages to play as often as Keita did last season, Romeu may start 14 league games, which is 3 more than he managed at Chelsea last season.

Barcelona needs a deeper squad than the 19 players used to prosecute the last campaign. A deep squad is always an asset unless it is not well managed – Chelsea won the UCL in May because they were able to call on 2 quality centre backs in David Luis and Gary Cahill even when their captain Terry and Ivanovic were suspended. If Pique and Puyol are suspended for a match, Vilanova will need to pair Mascherano (a converted midfielder) with an inexperienced CB, a recipe for disaster. Barcelona can deepen its squad, re-affirm its faith in La Masia and strengthen the defence, without breaking the bank, by purchasing the players suggested above.

medjai: Wow! Stealthy is back!

honeric01: Welcome back bro

Lol, thanks guys.

Now my long articles follow...

My transfer suggestions (long articles to come soon on the reason behind what I wrote):

In:
1. Alba (LB) 14m
2. Botia (CB) - 3m or Papadopoulous (CB) - 12m
3. Romeu (DMF) - 10m (can't afford him if papadopoulous comes)
4. Lewandowski (CF) - 18m
5. Rene Adler (GK) - 4m
Total: 49m

Out:
1. Keita (CMF) - free
2. Fontas (CB/LB) - 4m
3. Cuenca (RF) - 5m
4. Tello (LF) - loan

Total: 9m

With a transfer budget of 40m, the proceeds from selling the above average youth players Cuenca & Fontas will augment the budget.

You can see I like Bundesliga players: they are cheap and generally good quality. Real Madrid can testify: Ozil, Khedira, Sahin, etc. Also Man U: Kagawa. Arsenal: Podolski.

Compare the price of any of these players with the 29m + 11m options Barca paid for Sanchez.

For the goalie, we need someone young who can challenge Valdes. Adler in a member of the German national team and he can replace old man Pinto. Bundesliga probably has the highest collection of good goalies in Europe.

The Return of Stealthy

Guys, I have been on an assignment by my company and as a result haven't been able to contribute to this forum or even read your comments over the last couple of months. Fortunately, I'm back just in time for the new season. Yipee!

I will contribute to the transfer suggestions shortly.

I also see there's a drive to form a penye in Nigeria - that's good. I'm not in Lagos presently but will certainly love to join so we can formalize this our passion for this club

Messiah keeps smashing the records. He is a truly outstanding player. Simply special.

But one of these days I'll like to see him give up a penalty kick to Mascherano for a chance to score his first Barcelona goal.

Now that we have lost the league, referees in Spain have started to give us dodgy penalties. They think this will make is forget all the genuine penalties they didn't give us when it mattered?

Meanwhile why does every handball in La Liga warrant a yellow card? This is the most absurd feature of La liga refereeing this season.

medjai: Rumours abound that we've signed Alba for €13m.

I really can't see what he'd bring to the team that we haven't already got in Adriano. I really hope he proves me wrong but I'd have preferred a bigger, more physical defender to supplement what we already have. . . IMO, it doesn't in anyway fill the Abidal sized hole in the defence.

Well I hope it's not true. While we need a new LB to replace Abidal, Alba is too short. He's a very good player, but our defence (and team in general) cannot afford to have more short members.

Meanwhile, I hope the rivalry between Barca and Real Madrid cools a bit next season. It is so intense now that it is damaging La Liga (neither club can afford to lose a match, leading to ridiculous gaps between 2nd and 3rd), but now, I feel it has cost both clubs the chance to reach the UCL finals. Last weekend, in the classico, both Barca and Real played their best available teams. However, their opponents in UCL (Chelsea and Bayern Munich) both rested their best players for the UCL matches. By the 65th minute of the two UCL matches, you could see that Barca and Madrid players got tired, while Chelsea and Bayern players were still going stong (in spite of Chelsea playing with 10 men against Barca). In any other league in Europe, this last El Classico would would have been reserves vs Reserves, but the rivalry is so intense now that both managers risked UCL for classico glory - SMH!

Congrats guys on your win against Madrid. Recall I wrote before the semis that you guys only need to be disciplined in defence to frustrate Madrid and go through. Wish you all the best in the final against Cheski.

Like most Cules, I'm not happy that Pep is leaving now. Especially because all the haters out there will claim that it is because of the losses to Madrid and Chelsea, which we all know is not true. From his body language and evasiveness to renew his contract earlier in the season, it was suspected by many (though we all hoped against it) that he would call it quits this season.

I wish him all the best and hope that the club will give Tito the resources he needs to succeed.

honeric01: Pedro is NEVER going to make the team, quit hyping him, he's one of the major dissapointment Barca suffered this season.

Jesus Navas is there to take his place.

One more thing, a complete spainish team with 82% possession is likely going to win any church. remember they are going to be having strikers that Barca don't have.

Torres
Llorrente.

E.t.c

I agree. Spain has a lot of strikers fighting to make the team: Torres, Llorente, Muniain (if played as a striker), Soldado, and of course Villa, if he recovers on time. They won't have the same issues we have unless Del Bosque decides to copy Pep to the letter.

ritchboy: How did Barca contrive to throw away a 2-goal lead to ten men?

You actually played better in the first leg where you created a lot of chances, it seems Chelsea bought a bigger bus! The key to unlocking a packed defence is simple: width!

To be fair to Pep he did try to add width with Cuenca and later Tello but neither of them got past their fullback once. A player like Valencia woulda made a real difference.

They kept working the ball wide, winger fails to beat fullback, pass back to Xavi, pass to other wing and on and on, that sequence alone ate up 30 minutes of the match! When your wide players can't dribble Drogba who was shifted to the left then you know you're in trouble.

Messi having his worst game in ages didn't help matters either. I've also noticed Xavi's distribution and overall game has been poor by his standards for a while, time to start blooding Cesc(probably ur best player on the night, critics where una dey? ) for that role ahead of next season IMO.

Speaking of which, I can't believe Pep took out Cesc for Keita and left Puyol(who seemed to be completely unoccupied both offensively and defensively) Busquets and Xavi on. I was expecting a 1-5-4 with Pedro playing a part.

Yes, I agree. Pep makes some of the strangest substitutions I've seen from any top coach.

In 2010, when we needed a goal against Inter, he took out Ibra for inexperienced Bojan! Who does that?!

This year, we needed a goal and he brings in inexperienced Tello AND ineffectual Keita!

How do you manage 82% possession against 10 men for almost an hour, yet so few chances.

Because we generate the bulk of our possession in non-dangerous play: Pass to the wings, pass back to midfield, pass to the other wing, then midfield again. All night long. No shots, no defence splitting matches (the few attempted were blocked).

I don't care for our extreme possession stats. Other tiki taka teams such as Arsenal and Dortmund attack with much more pace and they don't possess as much as we do. We need to learn to turn defence to attack quickly, not slow the game, allowing defenders to maintain their shape & discipline. Watch Chelsea trying to park the bus against Madrid (assuming they qualify) in the final and watch them getting ripped apart - I hope Pep and his coaching staff will take notes.