₦airaland Forum

I have said this before: In defence, we should not play both Puyol & Abidal together anymore - they're both ageing and it's showing. Masch must always play in CB as he's by far our best tackler this season. Interestingly, it looks like Masch has forgotten how to play as a DMF, considering he has hardly played there in his Barcelona career. We need more cover at the back in any case - we need to buy back Botia and promote Montoya, Bartra. Fontas should go out on loan.

We clearly need a lethal finisher. Cesc, Tello, Pedro, may score but these are not 25-goals-a season strikers. They're attackers who will only complement our main striker. Messi is the only striker we have, along with Villa. Villa was poor this season before his injury and I doubt if he will even get back to his Valencia best. We need to invest in that kind of striker we had in Etoo. We cannot expect to win the league & UCL with only Messi capable of scoring consistently.

At this rate, by the time Madrid come to Nou Camp on April 22, the league would be theirs already and our players would do them a guard of honour.

Many people are saying the UCL is easier to win, but is it really? You can win the league in spite of playing badly in a few matches. In UCL, only one bad game can knock you out (eg 3-1 away at Inter in 2010). I don't mind losing the league to Madrid, but we should make them sweat for it for crying out loud.

mbulela:
the end of an era.

Not quite yet. We can still win the UCL this season and be the 1st club to win it back to back.

medjai:
Pep's line-ups are indeed strange this season. There are some huge changes in the team like Pep doesn't care if we lose points or not because of that, yet on the other hand Messi is always there in the team playing every single match. If you're not gonna take the league seriously then let Messi take a rest too. If you are taking the league seriously then what's up with all these changes in the line-ups?


The painful thing is there's still lots of matches to play and the league is already wrapped up.

I agree 100%. I know Pep started this season, trying to look for a Plan B. That's why he played 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 in several matches. However, I would have expected those changes to come in the relatively comfortable home matches, when we get into a comfortable lead. Why would you go and play a new formation away at Valencia for example? There have been numerous opportunities to rest Messi, but Pep uses him for 90mins in every single match. I have concluded there's a sponsorship element to it sha - it's insane to work a player this much and surely both Pep and Messi know this.

I know Pep will learn his lessons. The league is already lost and we're not even making Madrid sweat for it! It's now clear that you cant win 3 tournaments with such a thin squad unless you're lucky with injuries (as we were least season). We actually have the smallest squad in La Liga!

usbcable:
guy calm down.
ingratitude for somebody that has done so much for you guys is really a bad xter of a person.

I agree with usbcable. Pep can still win the UCL and Copa for us this season (which would make the season a successful one IMO). And even if he doesn't, we should just review the season, see what we did wrong and make improvements for next season. Pep has won so much for this club that letting him go because of 1 bad season would be really bad. I still remember the Van Gaal years when we played tiki taka almost as well as we do now, yet we won absolutely nothing.

If any coach should go, it's Mou. The rivalry between Real Madrid and Barca was a healthy one before he came. I know many Cules who would support Madrid in UCL those years when we weren't doing well in Europe and Madrid was leading the UCL charge for La Liga. Now there's so much bad blood between the teams that Madrid players deliberately try to injure our players.

usbcable might support Real Madrid but he contributes to this thread more than some Cules lol!

And usb, yes, Puyol played and was taken out at half time.

^^^^
I have no issues with losing the league to Madrid, afterall no be our birth-right. But we should at leasat make a fight of it.

I agree with your other points.

I was actually irritated with the silly yellow cards our boys picked up. Now, Masch will miss the game against Valencia next weekend - that's our best defender out of the match

We were poor tonight. The 1st half was one of the worst performances of Barca under Pep.

Alves played very badly even though he rested mid-week.

Starting with a midfield trio of Masch, Thiago & Sergi was obviously never going to dominate. There was no point starting Pedro considering that even when he was fit, he hasn't played well all season long, much less now that he's not even fully fit.

Messi needs to rest. I hope Pep sees that now. In the last few weeks, Messi has missed so many chances that he would normally bury blindfolded. Yes, he's a special player, but his effectiveness has dropped seriously in recent weeks. We can win a match with all our starting 11 except Messi, so Pep should just get bold and do that one weekend. If we can't win without Messi, then we don't deserve to be called the best.

Tello was the brightest spark and it will be good to see him more often.

Finally, this season has exposed our lack of depth. We were lucky with injuries last season. The two seasons when Iniesta got injured (2009-10 and this season), we have lost a major trophy to Mourinho.

Now we're playing with no CB!

The match Pep should have taken some adventurous gambles was the match against Villareal when he went over-conservative.

Great goal by Tello. Our discovery this season!

It will be amazing if we can turn this around.

Ajanlekoko

He's more focused on UCL, I agree, but he can't give away the league already. We need to keep pace with Madrid. In the unlikely event of a Madrid dip in form, we have to be there to pick things up. Madrid only need to lose 1 match (and we keep winning) for the gap to be 4 points, with a Nou Camp classico still to come.

But with 3-1, all hopes of salvaging this match and the league are effectively gone.

Brining in Cuenca & Tello instead of Xavi & Iniesta shows the league is not considered important anymore.  

Not just that we're 2-0 down, we're not even creating chances. We're not dominating at all. I really question the wisdom of starting Sergi in a match like this. Has Pep given up on the league already? We need Xavi & Iniesta in ASAP. And maybe Cesc/Tello as well to replace Pedro later.

2-0 down! Gosh! The boys need all their mental strength now - we have to turn this around!

Otherwise, we're simply handing the trophy to Real with barely half the season gone!

medjai:
Really strange line-up for tonight's game.

Masch, Thiago and Sergi Roberto in midfield. CL on Pep's mind but should we be fielding weakeaned sides considering we are away and how poor we've been away from home in the league?


Great to see Pedrito back.

I agree! Another strange line-up by Pep! He should have done a lot more of these rotations when we were spanking teams 5-0 in Nou Camp, not in a tough away match.

We've conceded an early goal already!

Hope we can turn this around.

Shaqiri is a good buy for Bayern. I'm happy for both sides.

Bayern won today, but so did Dortmund. The BL no de dull at all.

medjai:
It'd be interesting to see if Mirandes gets one of the European tickets since we'll definitely qualify for the CL and Athletic might pick the last CL ticket or at least an EL ticket.

Now that'll be very interesting! I hope Bilbao make EL courtesy of their league standing so Mirandes can get into EL too.

Good to have Ini back. Hopefully the team will start to play better and convert better. I'm confident we can win the Copa and UCL this season and even make life difficult for Madrid in the league.

Against Valencia, a goalless draw is enough to see us through (as drab as it sounds lol!). Valencia need to attack to have any hope of going through, so I expect our boys to take care of business. Like AJ said, we should just play our normal 4-3-3.

medjai:
^^^ And it was a really great goal. Lucho has transformed Roma into one big killing machine. They just steamroll teams at will. If only they could be more consistent. If they win their game in hand vs Catania, they'll move up to 5th place ahead of Inter.

I think Roma are more consistent now. Reminds me of our first season with pep - we struggled a bit at the start too. In Roma's case, the style is almost completely new to the players, coupled with integrating so many players, it's easy to understand why they started the season so badly. I hope to see them in europe (at least EL) next season.

Johnpaul88:
Good news for us!!!
www.totalbarca.com/2012/news/pedro-and-iniesta-partly-train-with-the-group/

Thank God o! We can't have these guys back soon enough. If we can ride out Feb, overcoming Valencia (I'll take a 0-0 at the Nou Camp ), getting at least a score draw vs Leverkusen in Germany and winning the league fixtures, I'll say our season is on the way to recovery and we place ourselves in a position to pounce in the highly unlikely event of a RM slip-up (I hope the Russian cold slows them up a bit after their UCL trip there ).

In other news, Bojan scored in Roma's 4-0 thrashing of Inter. This was his first goal in a while, so I hope he gets some confidence from it. Roma are now closing on Inter after a disastrous start to the season.

Kellymann:
And who says the advancement in their economy as compared to Nigeria has anything to do with the number of days they have as public holidays.

I really see no need for this kind of thread except that the OP is trying to show how much of a bigot he is or looking for cheap popularity in starting a thread which he feels is controversial.

It is a widely accepted fact that employers of labour will always detest holidays & employees are always prone to always happy with holidays.

It is a public holiday declared by the govt. Whether or not is too much is an issue for the machinery of govt to work out & it sounds funny to M̶̲̅ε̲̣ that a country will want to waste time & resources on debating whether declaring a day as a public holiday is right or wrong.

My point exactly. That's why I put so many countries there. I was just trying to show that advancement/productivity is not reduced by the no of public holidays we have, since we're quite normal. The Chinese & Japanese have more holidays and are still more advanced. UK & US have slightly fewer than we do, they're still more advanced. In short, development/advancement has little to do with the no of public holidays as some people were starting to insinuate.

Johnpaul88:
I think we played well generally in the freezing cold. The temperature at Nou Camp was reported to have dropped to -4'C, the coldest in a century.

In the issue of scoring and finishing, when Messi gets his acts together, we 'll be fine!

For Busquets, i read he only sustained an open wound. No injury to bone, ligament or joint was . They said he may yet play on wednesday. Good news!

Tello is our new kid on the block. It is hard to muscle him out of the ball unlike the skinny, lanky Cuenca who was beaten time and again to pace and strength by his marker. Tello was my MOTM!

@Stealthy, if u can believe that Cesc was our worst player on the pitch tonight, then u can believe anything.

Lol! Cesc being worst is my opinion and nothing else, so it's not about "believing anything".

I think Cesc has played very well when playing a more forward role and has been a lot less impressive in the midfield. He also looks tired and I'll be surprised if he starts on Wednesday.

Feleezy:
Is anybody else here, hoping for a mali defeat.

While Barca needs Keita (we so lack depth), I believe in giving your all to your national team, so I'm wishing Keita and his colleagues the best in their encounter. Whether they win or lose, I'm not too bothered.

And really, if you don't like the holidays, you can always work from home or go to your place of work (if you have the required access). No one forces holidays on people.

I personally plan to work on Monday, but that doesn't mean other people shouldn't enjoy the holiday.

jamace:
Why should  events that occurred on weekends be celebrated on  working days as public holidays?

Why must we shift holidays that fell on weekends to working days, thereby consuming some working days[man-hours]?  All these  stealing of working days for holidays portray us as unserious and a people who likes relaxation at the detriment of work. No wonder, we are backward in industrial productivity.

My opinion is that holidays should be celebrated on days they occurred. Period.

In most countries, when a public holiday falls on a weekend, the holiday is shifted to the next working day. This is not unique to Nigeria at all.

In UK, this year, they're going to have 9 days off, with 1 day for the queen's golden jubilee. In Scotland, it's 10 days.

In USA, there are 10 days declared by the Fed govt (although states tend to differ a bit).

Brazil has about 14 days of public holidays this year.

Botswana (which has one of the best economies in Africa) has 12 days, as does South Africa.

Germany has roughly 10 days (depends on which state you're in).

Malaysia: 14 days (or more, depending on the state you live in).

And these are the countries that we tend to associate with working hard:

China: 11 days.
Japan: 14 days.
India: 14 days (more than 14 in some states)

Countries which have several major religions have to observe the holidays for all the religions, so tend to have more holidays.

Productivity is not really reduced by public holidays. What do you say about countries in Europe, where paid leave is generally long and paid maternity/paternity leave is long. And what will you say about France and their 35 hour work week.

Barca win, only just though.

Hope Busi's injury wasn't too bad - Barca cannot afford another 1st teamer on the sidelines.

Barca;s best players (IMO); Tello & Masch

Barca's worst player (IMO): Cesc.

Barca win, only just though.

Hope Busi's injury wasn't too bad - Barca cannot afford another 1st teamer on the sidelines.

Barca;s best players (IMO); Tello & Masch

Barca's worst player (IMO): Cesc.

JDS off - no surprise. Busi provides better cover.

Let me hear anyone say that La Liga teams make life easy for Barca & Real. These Basque boys are very stubborn!

Finally! The 2nd goal comes. And Messi deserves it too.

Alves na mumu o! He should have just gone into the post na! Gosh!

Messi's conversion rate has dropped ridiculously in the last few matches! I hope pep sees that the man needs some rest. Normal Messi would have a hat-trick in this match.

Messi's conversion rate has dropped ridiculously in the last few matches! I hope Pep sees that the man needs some rest. Normal Messi would have a hat-trick in this match.

Fresh impetus needed. Cesc should go off - his performance has been mostly flat.

7 mins into the 2nd half, Messi + Tello want to do the exact same move as the 1st half goal. Offside though.

Wow! living dangerously! Barca need to score a 2nd goal (at least0 for comfort.

I'm sure Pep is now regretting his overly conservative line-up against Villareal. The boys are playing much better today and just need to make the best of the possession and chances.

I think JDS will be the first sub out - too many fouls from him (mostly in the opposition half though) and a few misplaced passes. It's difficult for him to give the defence the same cover as Busi does and it looks like pep has switched from 3-4-3 to 4-3-3, with Alves moving back to defence.

I'm sure Pep is now regretting his overly conservative line-up against Villareal. The boys are playing much better today and just need to make the best of the possession and chances.

I think JDS will be the first sub out - too many fouls from him (mostly in the opposition half though) and a few misplaced passes. It's difficult for him to give the defence the same cover as Busi does and it looks like pep has switched from 3-4-3 to 4-3-3, with Alves moving back to defence.