₦airaland Forum

We drew with Sevilla because:

1. The midfielders weren't shooting from outside the box.
2. The wing-backs didn't put in good crosses.
3. Villa & Pedro kept trying to pass to Messi even when they were in better positions to score.
4. Messi was trying to do it all by himself

I think Pep has learnt from these mistakes and the play so far today looks better. Also, I'm happy with Fab in the line-up as he's one of our most direct players and one of the few not afraid to take a shot instead of passing to Messi.

^^^^
Thanks for the update medjai.

Barca B is definitely weaker, especially without the attacking combo of Nolito & Soriano. I would have liked to see more of Soriano as he was very good in preseason before he got injured.

To add to to losing players they also lost the coach.

But the worst move for me was Romeu. How could he have joined Chelsea of all clubs? Arsenal would have been a much better proposition as Wenger uses his youth (though we don't really want any Barca player doing a buy-back deal in Arsenal). But he could also have gone to some mid-table club in Spain. In Chelsea, he doesn't even get on the subs bench.

AjanleKoko:
^^
Welcome back Stealthy.

By the way, Abidal picked up yet another hamstring

Luckily it's a short one, and he'll be out for 10 days max. Which sort of rules him out of the Internationals

Thanks man. I've had a very busy few months and I've watched only a handful of our games so far this season, catching the rest of the action on highlights shows.

Yet another injury, but fortunately there are returnees as well so we've not been hit too hard. Also, the team is more rounded this season with Alexis, Thiago & Fab so injuries to key players (eg Iniesta) don't affect our team as much,

A good win for us today. Gijon did well, making life tough for our attackers, with ex-Barca (and hopefully returnee next summer) Botia doing well once again. It was a tough win, but I'm ok with that - we can't expect manitas every game and Gijon away is hardly a walk-over.

Good thing is that we're now top of the table and some of the injured guys can use the international break to recuperate.

medjai:
Roma 3 Atalanta 1.
Back to back wins for Luis Enrique's Roma. This will definitely help ease the pressure on him.
Great to see Bojan in action for them and scoring as well. Great finish to open scoring today.

I'm happy for Bojan - hope this is the first of many goals for Roma.

I was hoping Espanyol would do Barca a neighbourly favour by making life difficult for madrid, but it was 0-4 to Madrid eventually. Mou's boys are looking more dangerous than ever, but we can still retain our tile.

Overall, La Liga is looking a bit better this season (I know it's still early days), with Malaga in the mix & Valencia doing their best to compete with their limited resources. Hopefully Barca & Real won't end the season with ridiculous points this season, leaving everyone else far behind.

abhosts:
Unsubsidized Petrol cannot cost N195 per litter. Diesel is completely deregulated and it costs far less than that, whereas, it is actually a more expensive commodity compared to Petrol.

In many countries, petrol is more expensive than diesel, so your statement is not necessarily valid. Besides, it's Nigeria - we usually end up with crappy deals for the people & well-lined pockets for the well-connected.

Other than that, my take on this is that this is more crap from our government. They should sell the refineries first (after telling us what happened to the billions spent on TAM in the last 5 years). The truth is that these things are not even 100% "deregulated" in the western countries we follow so blindly. Whenever the price of oil climbs too much, the US govt for example releases supplies from the strategic reserves to control the prices & keep their economy from overheating.

Our pot-bellied leaders have no clue what is going on (the wikileaks releases confirmed what most people always thought) & just go with everything IMF & World Bank tell them to do: remove all subsidies, introduce VAT, sell all state assets, lock the people up if they complain,

I think the entire team needs to watch the UCL final in London again & see what we did right against ManU:
Shooting from outside the box - 2 of our goals in that match were from outside the box. Last night, many players had shooting chances outside the box, but were still looking to make sideways passes. That is exactly where the defenders want us to be. Villa scored a great goal and I was wondering why he couldn't shoot more often, since he has the ability. Shooting from outside becomes more important when the opposition packs the defence like Milan did.

Alves made many forward runs but there was no one in the box to pass to - pedro & Villa were absent for long periods & only Messi was trying to score.

Pep will surely learn from his mistakes and hopefully we should see Busi no more in defence. His presence in defence is double jeopardy as it weakens both the defence & midfield - surely Pep would have noticed that now. With Puyol, Pique, Masch, Abidal, Fontas, we should be able to ride out the season, although buying Botia would have given the kind of comfort we now have in midfield & attack.

Good thing this comes at this stage of the season. As usual, people will celebrate "Barca's decline" even though, it's a draw, not a loss. I'm sure we'll bounce back & still win this group.

Advantage Milan. Another match not buried in the space of 4 days. Pep has to read the boys the riot act.

Advantage Milan. Another match not buried in the space of 4 days. Pep has to read the boys the riot act.

Normal service resumes. To imagine that I was just dissing Villa. lovely freekick!

mukina2:
barca fans and bragging  ,  una go see am this season oh

I wasn't bragging, just responding to a ludicrous post. But when you support the best team in the world, youre allowed some bragging rights, true?

AJ

Good to see that some alien didn't kidnap you guys.

Normal service has resumed. Villa has just shut me up. But he still needs to contribute more in the game sha, not fading in & out. Better Villa on the left & Pedro on the right than vice versa.

I'm sure Pep will learn from his defensive errors. He has proved to be one who learns from his mistakes, unlike Wenger.

medjai:
Roy Makaay - 10 seconds. Fastest goal in CL history.

I thought so too - don't know why these English commentators are calling Pato's the fastest in history.

kobikwelu:
^^^

damn!! i knew iniesta was injury prone, thats y he was not a starter in the weekend,

abeg where can i watch this match online,

Ini hasn't had a major injury for over a year & his injury tonight didn't look very bad either.

kabukabu:
Barcelona is a collection of whiny fragile man-boys who love to dive   .I hope they get exposed tonight

Watch Barca vs ManU again & see how "fragile' the Barca players looked. Which team do you support? Let's see them play against the "fragile man-boys" & chop some sand.

mbulela:
As good as the Barcelona philosophy is, i think Messi makes it look extraordinary.
this Barca team is human and very beatable bar Messi.

Messi would make any team extraordinary. Just like Maradona, Zidane, Ronaldo (R9) did in their days. Is Barca ordinary without Messi? Would ManU be weaker without Rooney or Madrid without Ronaldo or Inter without Sneijder? We can debate till tomorrow - what matters is that Messi is Barca's so they have every right to win with him & we can forget the academic debates.

Where are all the Cules? Is something else going on?

Barca has not been inspiring so far (partly due to the early goal).

Now Ini is out. Na wa o! Fab has to come in, maybe Thiago too eventually.

King Messi does it again!

Whats wrong with Villa? The guy was brilliant in pre-season but has looked very bad so far in serious matches.

medjai:
Busquets is a legend, lol.
Luis Enrique's Roma lost 1-2 to Cagliari at home y'day. Lucho is finding it rough over there in Rome. They've also been k/o'd of the Europa League by lowly Slovan Bratislava.
There's something about Italy and Spaniards. They just can't survive there. Our own Pep was a flop at Brescia. Benitez failed with Inter. . .
Bojan played in that game y'day and he was terrible.

Interesting update. Wish Enrique & Bojan all d best.

But their exit from EL will help to drop Serie A's coefficients even more.

I believe that the 5-0 win against Villareal was a terrible result for us. It reinforced Pep's wrong belief that Busi can play CB and Keita can play DMF. We all know these 2 cannot play in those respective positions. Sociedad showed it on Saturday & pato has shown it today. I said all thro the summer that we were too thin on defence - that is the area where you have the most suspensions & if we have 1 or 2 injuries, then things start to look very shaky. I still don't know why we didn't buy Botia.

The good news though is that the draw at Sociedad is not a bad result in the overall context of things & we can still beat Milan tonight - even if we don't beat Milan tonight, there's still time to recover.

I'm sure Pep has learnt his lessons:
Surely we will not see Busi+Fontas as a CB pairing again this season.

9jafreak:
[size=16pt]Did anyone else notice the insanity?

This Day Newspaper outsources a News Report on Nigeria (Abuja FCT) from Xinxua (or better spelt Xinhua), a newsmedia in Beijing, China.


Pathetic journalism![/size]

I did. Naija journalists are ridiculously lazy. They frequently quote foreign sources for events taking place in Nigeria. It's Crazy!!!

dayokanu:
I think Mourinho is the cause, El classicos before the days of Mourinho were friendlier

Follow Mourinho vs barca from Chelsea to Inter to Madrid always ending in controversy

Very true! We never had such farcical episodes before Mou came.

We don't know how to defend corner kicks. Pep needs to work on this, starting by putting 2 men on the line.

mukina2:
Pepe is great!  

Pepe darling you know our deal when fibregas gets in  

Lol! The beast never disappoints!

dayokanu:
I suspect Madrid would start up a fight so they can have an excuse for losing

You're a genius!

We won finally. Match was tight & Madrid at least played footie for the most part. Messi remains Messi even when not at his peak fitness. Masch is very solid as CB. I liked the way Pep moved things around with Adriano playing LB, then RB towards the end.

And of course, Cesc has won a trophy in his 1st match for Barca!

Casillas must hate the sight of Messi already. 2 assists, 2 goals in less than 2 full games!

mukina2:

Lol! We'll give you the Cesc treatment: Pull a Barca shirt over your head,

Oh my! What a play by Messi. What a goal by Iniesta!!!

Funny enough, I want tonight's game to end 0-0 or 1-1. I want us to win this supercup narrowly so Madrid is goaded into believing that the gap between the 2 clubs has gone down. Than GBAM!!! we hit hit them with a manita when it matters most.

@Mukina2 since you've become an official member of this thread, we most welcome you . We thank Cesc for bringing some Arsenal loyalists, the same way Ronnie got some Barca fans to start watching AC Milan.

Mukina is a dual citizen (Barca & Arsenal) - she's such a cule babe!

ritchboy:
I thunk they'd already given the number 4 shirt to Thiago. . .

Thiago only had the no 4 for the pre-season when there were no names on the shirts. Against RM last night, Thiago wore the no 11 with his name on the back.

mukina2:
now that you have the midget, please i take God beg una oh, please please please DO NOT POST  his pictures on arsenal  thread with a barca shirt, because

1, he is no longer a gunner
2, the thread is for arsenal football discussions and all that relates to the club.

that being said, i wish  pepe breaks his legs if he plays on Wednesday  

Lol! See beef! Gooners were claiming Barca should shut up or pay up. Now we pay up and all gooners are saying stuff like "he was never that good anyway", "I wish Pepe breaks his legs", "he was injured most of the last 2 seasons anyway". I wonder why gooners always have beef for their want-away players. I still remember cries of "Flamoney - he will never succeed in Milan" (note he has won a scudetto in Milan) and Cashley Cole. Everyone who leaves Arsenal is branded a traitor. Why can't you guys just thank these players and wish them the best when they leave? Look at the reception Ronnie got on his return to Nou Camp for example. The only traitor in Nou Camp is Figo, for the truly treacherous way he carried out his transfer, to the great white enemy, no less.

2-2 final result. Advantage Barca. I'm very satisfied. Defence looked very shaky, but this was mainly due to frailties in the midfield.

Once we have the players fit, we're ready to rule Europe again, with the necessary dose of good luck that anyone needs to win the UCL.

AjanleKoko:
Sinking ship?

Daddy, go sleep. ya bedtime don pass.

On an aside, why do they have to play two legs of this Supercup anyway? No wahala sha.

Hopefully the super cup becomes a more interesting 1 legged affair soon. A few years ago, the Kings Cup was also a 2-legged final. The spanish are slow to change sometimes.

medjai:
Barcastuff
OFFICIAL: An agreement for Cesc has ben reached. Pending his physical & signature. The player is on a private jet en route to BCN

I just saw it on barcastuff too (I don't trust goal.com). I never agreed with this signing, but Cesc will make us even better, deeper. Welcome back & stay healthy (don't be to us what Kaka has been to Madrid)

edoyad:
very funny, exactly what contribution did Cesc make to bringing in success at Emirates ? And about future success he's joining a sinking ship FYI

lol! Cesc just jumped from a sinking ship: Arsenal will not make top 4 this season. Wenger leaves next summer.

Alexis has been energetic. I can imagine playing him on one wing, Pedro on the other. Our defenders can go to sleep as those 2 will track back all night.

We're undone once again by not putting men on the line when defending corner kicks. No wahala sha - this is still part of pre-season for me.

Pepe is a crazy guy.

Where are those who were saying "Thiago cannot perform against a top team"? I just saw him take on 3 madrid players, successfully.