How can we make this draw profitable?
Answer: learning our lesson.
How is that?
Answer: Being critical and objective analyzing this game away of typical statements and general phrases.
Let’s first clarify three points as needed for this article to be taken as objective as it was planned to be:
1) I am not a result oriented guy, as some may remember I defended the team when we lost against Numancia, and felt good when we drew against Basel, so this article would have been exactly the same no matter what the result would have been, if we scored a last minute goal for example.
2) By no mean we consider that draw as the end of the world, its just one of the unimpressive results we will earn during the league, prepare yourself for more, or else its going to be a boring season for me. So here we don't sentence our players to death if we don't win, the same as we don't crown them as gods when we smash an opponent. This is only a brief of what I believe Pep and Co will do after the game, a "critical analysis" to learn the lessons.
We can jump to conclusions like, this player is bad that player is perfect, then we change our mind after the next game based on performance, or we focus on what these players were brought to apply, the tactical system planned by the coaches. I will keep my over-all evaluation regarding players and coaching staff till January as I always said, for now, lets try to understand why we failed to win this game.
3) It will sound easy and unfair of me to come and lecture about the game after it ended, I am aware of that, so I will base my evaluation mostly based on what I wrote before the game to keep things fair for all the parties.
Answer: learning our lesson.
How is that?
Answer: Being critical and objective analyzing this game away of typical statements and general phrases.
Let’s first clarify three points as needed for this article to be taken as objective as it was planned to be:
1) I am not a result oriented guy, as some may remember I defended the team when we lost against Numancia, and felt good when we drew against Basel, so this article would have been exactly the same no matter what the result would have been, if we scored a last minute goal for example.
2) By no mean we consider that draw as the end of the world, its just one of the unimpressive results we will earn during the league, prepare yourself for more, or else its going to be a boring season for me. So here we don't sentence our players to death if we don't win, the same as we don't crown them as gods when we smash an opponent. This is only a brief of what I believe Pep and Co will do after the game, a "critical analysis" to learn the lessons.
We can jump to conclusions like, this player is bad that player is perfect, then we change our mind after the next game based on performance, or we focus on what these players were brought to apply, the tactical system planned by the coaches. I will keep my over-all evaluation regarding players and coaching staff till January as I always said, for now, lets try to understand why we failed to win this game.
3) It will sound easy and unfair of me to come and lecture about the game after it ended, I am aware of that, so I will base my evaluation mostly based on what I wrote before the game to keep things fair for all the parties.
Just a flashing remark, after I read the comments every where about the players performance, keep in mind that cams fool us sometimes, it follows the ball in a way that the players outside the ball frame will be anonymous even though their roles may be more important than the most seen, example?
How many times did Getafe players moved the ball from defense to offense throw our left flank? Count and if I count right then you will notice they moved the ball all the time throw our eight midfield, either that's because Sylvinho is a defensive monster, or there was someone in the midfield making a contingency positioning on the left closing that path and drifting the ball to the right, sure we didn't see who, because the ball wasnt there, it was on the right, and there was the cam as well, but can we make a guess?
Watching the game is something, reading the game is something else, specially when we watch it on TV, but thats another big subject so as usual the alert call: Brief Ramzi! Brief...
How many times did Getafe players moved the ball from defense to offense throw our left flank? Count and if I count right then you will notice they moved the ball all the time throw our eight midfield, either that's because Sylvinho is a defensive monster, or there was someone in the midfield making a contingency positioning on the left closing that path and drifting the ball to the right, sure we didn't see who, because the ball wasnt there, it was on the right, and there was the cam as well, but can we make a guess?
Watching the game is something, reading the game is something else, specially when we watch it on TV, but thats another big subject so as usual the alert call: Brief Ramzi! Brief...
“A trap in the Shadow” was the article written before the game, and the title tells the first remark, it was a tricky game that snapped and snipped us in the middle of the noisy debates about December games, it was exactly what we warned about, a kick on the knee before the Mini league marathon of December.
Let's give the credit to the Getafe coach for the mental preparation, because you can hear him saying the following to his players before the game:
“You are here to play against the best team in the world, at their home, what do you need more as a motivation? If you lose it's not a shame, if you win then that's something you will be proud of forever, and will tell your children about it and they may not believe you, so make sure to keep a DVD for this game after you earn an honored result! I can see them in that room, Barcelona stars, talking about you playing all defenses and causing no threat, they are thinking how will they start smashing you, but guess what! They don’t know us! We will play like ALI, welcome the punches but aiming all the time for a knock out!”
Were our guys mentally ready for this game? It seems they were not focused and it seemed they were so certain it will be a win at the end of the day, they tried hard for real, but they seemed to have no big motivation to focus from the very first minute, so all were out of system, and out of functions.
Yea…including Guardiola, the man I believe in to manage this team, and I still do with no doubts, but man this game…I don’t care if we won it or lost it, again as I said in the pre-match article, its not a game for any tests and rotations, what happened was obvious:
1) Playing Sylvinho and Alves together: last summer everyone was calling for a new left back to take Abidal place, a new Alves was urgently needed, and I said it then you just cant play two forward backwards at the same time, we tried it already with Gio and Belleti! Abidal (then later Puyol on the left back) created balance with the two central backs when Alves moves forward. What we did in this game was not that we only used two offensive backwards, but also one of them was out of form.
Having Sylvinho meant keeping Puyol and Pique alone at the back, specially when Yaya turned to act more as a midfielder than a defensive midfielder, the team lost depth, and if you watch the goal it wasn’t only and exclusively Pique's fault. In the other hand, playing with this shallow depth made the players feel insecure pushing up and maintaining continuous high pressure on the ball holder, so the Getafe players were able to keep the threat far from their goal and had their time to move the ball and generate counter attacks.
2) I mentioned that Getafe defense is slow and suffers bad positioning, for the first glance they may seems to be really solid in the back, but if you can watch the game again you will notice that every time we played the passing direct game and increased the tempo they got lost, but we didn’t do it that often in the first half, Did anyone noticed how determinant Barcelona players were to go from the middle? Did you notice that dribbling was a priority over passing the ball then feeling in a hurry to move the ball forward ending up playing a wrong pass? I never seen us playing as many wrong passes as we did in this game.
There was not enough width to open Getafe defense and generate our passing engines, Everyone was standing in his place instead of moving and requesting the ball, that’s out of system and it comes with the lack of psychological preparation for the game.
We made things too easy for Getafe defense through heading directly with the ball toward their bodies, and as I said once you need to rotate around the Bus when it’s parked in front of the ball, you just can’t keep crushing yourself on it.
3) How many times did we cross the ball in the first half? Three times, two were bad and one found no one on the far post, again before the game I mentioned that this team – Getafe – weakness is crosses and diagonal passes, and expected that it will be the way we can score.
We started without Henry and that was strange because that’s one of the rare games that fits him perfectly, in the second half we all saw the deference, even though Henry wasn’t really playing as a second striker but still he made his impact!
With Eto'o being the only striker in the box, Bojan and Hleb unactivated and not energetic enough on the flanks, while the midfielders were not orchestrating the moves to force everyone doing their jobs, we need to admit there was no threat in the first half to make getafe worry.
Henry beside Eto'o in the box was crucial to push Getafe back to their box instead of giving them the chance to pressure us in the midfield, that was the turning point.
And guys! Mainly Alves, Keita and Yaya, where the h****, are the long range shots?!
More crosses and playing on the flanks was the most important change between the first half and the second, besides passing the ball better, the goal was a carbon to a goal I posted in that article and I demanded more of that copy. We had to start the game the way we finished it, then we would have been able to finish it as we expected before it started!
Off record:
Can we win without Messi?
My answer is straight forward, definitely we can! If we discovered during the season that we cant then, pep and co has a big problem, or even pep and co ARE our big problem, which is not the case, not as I see it anyway. The strength of any team come from the quality of the squad and the quality of the coaching staff together, the era of being only dependent on the quality of some players in the squad ended and will never return, it happened once when we had exceptional talents and the other teams were in a mess, now things are different, when the important players are missed then the quality of the coaching staff find the opportunity to show its metal. So lets not get confused by the common stereotypes we read in the media, we have enough quality to overcome any challenges and no excuses allowed.
Why do I think Yaya's first half was not perfect?
Actually I raise this issue because it was the subject of the chat between the two halves on the blog chat application. What we try to do here is to go more in depth than taking the one dimensional scale. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but we will keep trying the best we can and we know. Yaya was, is, and will always be the tank in the midfield, no one can doubt that but is that all what needed? I know this is not going to be neither popular nor entertaining…
Football is a different and more complicated game than lot of other sports, in some sports, you have a player who is a criminal and his role is to stop the other team move, then you have the one with pace, the one who kick, the one who shoot, who rebound and so…I am not experienced in other sports so if that true then I know that’s not in football.
As for Yaya, in the first half he intercepted lot of balls, and made his physical impact, but he also did something that’s against the basic concepts of the game. As a defensive midfielder, and when u play in a game like the one we watched last night, you are not allowed to take the ball in the midfield, step over the midfielders of your team, and head with the ball directly in the traffic, because you cause more anonymous damage than the goods you may think you are adding throw doing that.
Some examples of side effects? The team width shrink, the midfielders shatter and move out of position and out of sense (Xavi@first half?), the wingers turn unemployed, the strikers get confused, the defense panic and feel like moving naked with no security, and the opponent feel if they can only get that ball then it will be easy for them to generate a counter attack, specially (again) when the fullbacks of your team move forward together.
I am not saying you can't move forward, but you do so while you are moving in a space, and that will be understood by the midfielders so one of them switch positions with you, but not jumping with the ball in the crowd where your midfielders barely find a space to step, even if the game go bad, DM -the same as CB- cannot just decide to take it on his own swallowing the ball and running forward.
In the second half I can say he was the player I like, he passed the ball all the time to the left and the right, I think the coach had that talk with him, and his respond helped in improving the group dynamics.
One thing missed, Pep is still not doing that tactical trick I suggested once, when things get chained, Yaya and Keita must switch positions so Yaya penetrate to the box and the team cross the ball to take advantage of his physical presence in the box, he will not only have a chance to head the ball to the net, but also through this move he can confuse the defense and open more spaces for his team mates, I hope to see that happening one day.
I tried in this article to discuss the game from another prospect rather than what you may read in most of the football sites, and intentionally I didn't evaluate any specific player in the game because players stocks are going up and down per game for now, I prefer to wait till at least end of December to evaluate the summer transfers made - because fans evaluate the transfer through the players performance per game, so I will not go in more detailed analysis. So I keep it as short as possible - I know, too late.
This is not an article to criticize the team, and my confidence and moral are still unshaken. We need to understand that this is a long season and we will Draw and lose as well as we will win, but even the defeats could be turned profitable if we learn our lessons.
I hope we celebrate guaranteeing the top of our Champions League group this week!
Let's give the credit to the Getafe coach for the mental preparation, because you can hear him saying the following to his players before the game:
“You are here to play against the best team in the world, at their home, what do you need more as a motivation? If you lose it's not a shame, if you win then that's something you will be proud of forever, and will tell your children about it and they may not believe you, so make sure to keep a DVD for this game after you earn an honored result! I can see them in that room, Barcelona stars, talking about you playing all defenses and causing no threat, they are thinking how will they start smashing you, but guess what! They don’t know us! We will play like ALI, welcome the punches but aiming all the time for a knock out!”
Were our guys mentally ready for this game? It seems they were not focused and it seemed they were so certain it will be a win at the end of the day, they tried hard for real, but they seemed to have no big motivation to focus from the very first minute, so all were out of system, and out of functions.
Yea…including Guardiola, the man I believe in to manage this team, and I still do with no doubts, but man this game…I don’t care if we won it or lost it, again as I said in the pre-match article, its not a game for any tests and rotations, what happened was obvious:
1) Playing Sylvinho and Alves together: last summer everyone was calling for a new left back to take Abidal place, a new Alves was urgently needed, and I said it then you just cant play two forward backwards at the same time, we tried it already with Gio and Belleti! Abidal (then later Puyol on the left back) created balance with the two central backs when Alves moves forward. What we did in this game was not that we only used two offensive backwards, but also one of them was out of form.Having Sylvinho meant keeping Puyol and Pique alone at the back, specially when Yaya turned to act more as a midfielder than a defensive midfielder, the team lost depth, and if you watch the goal it wasn’t only and exclusively Pique's fault. In the other hand, playing with this shallow depth made the players feel insecure pushing up and maintaining continuous high pressure on the ball holder, so the Getafe players were able to keep the threat far from their goal and had their time to move the ball and generate counter attacks.
2) I mentioned that Getafe defense is slow and suffers bad positioning, for the first glance they may seems to be really solid in the back, but if you can watch the game again you will notice that every time we played the passing direct game and increased the tempo they got lost, but we didn’t do it that often in the first half, Did anyone noticed how determinant Barcelona players were to go from the middle? Did you notice that dribbling was a priority over passing the ball then feeling in a hurry to move the ball forward ending up playing a wrong pass? I never seen us playing as many wrong passes as we did in this game.
There was not enough width to open Getafe defense and generate our passing engines, Everyone was standing in his place instead of moving and requesting the ball, that’s out of system and it comes with the lack of psychological preparation for the game.
We made things too easy for Getafe defense through heading directly with the ball toward their bodies, and as I said once you need to rotate around the Bus when it’s parked in front of the ball, you just can’t keep crushing yourself on it.
3) How many times did we cross the ball in the first half? Three times, two were bad and one found no one on the far post, again before the game I mentioned that this team – Getafe – weakness is crosses and diagonal passes, and expected that it will be the way we can score.
We started without Henry and that was strange because that’s one of the rare games that fits him perfectly, in the second half we all saw the deference, even though Henry wasn’t really playing as a second striker but still he made his impact!
With Eto'o being the only striker in the box, Bojan and Hleb unactivated and not energetic enough on the flanks, while the midfielders were not orchestrating the moves to force everyone doing their jobs, we need to admit there was no threat in the first half to make getafe worry.
Henry beside Eto'o in the box was crucial to push Getafe back to their box instead of giving them the chance to pressure us in the midfield, that was the turning point.
And guys! Mainly Alves, Keita and Yaya, where the h****, are the long range shots?!
More crosses and playing on the flanks was the most important change between the first half and the second, besides passing the ball better, the goal was a carbon to a goal I posted in that article and I demanded more of that copy. We had to start the game the way we finished it, then we would have been able to finish it as we expected before it started!
Off record:
Can we win without Messi?
My answer is straight forward, definitely we can! If we discovered during the season that we cant then, pep and co has a big problem, or even pep and co ARE our big problem, which is not the case, not as I see it anyway. The strength of any team come from the quality of the squad and the quality of the coaching staff together, the era of being only dependent on the quality of some players in the squad ended and will never return, it happened once when we had exceptional talents and the other teams were in a mess, now things are different, when the important players are missed then the quality of the coaching staff find the opportunity to show its metal. So lets not get confused by the common stereotypes we read in the media, we have enough quality to overcome any challenges and no excuses allowed.
Why do I think Yaya's first half was not perfect?Actually I raise this issue because it was the subject of the chat between the two halves on the blog chat application. What we try to do here is to go more in depth than taking the one dimensional scale. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but we will keep trying the best we can and we know. Yaya was, is, and will always be the tank in the midfield, no one can doubt that but is that all what needed? I know this is not going to be neither popular nor entertaining…
Football is a different and more complicated game than lot of other sports, in some sports, you have a player who is a criminal and his role is to stop the other team move, then you have the one with pace, the one who kick, the one who shoot, who rebound and so…I am not experienced in other sports so if that true then I know that’s not in football.
As for Yaya, in the first half he intercepted lot of balls, and made his physical impact, but he also did something that’s against the basic concepts of the game. As a defensive midfielder, and when u play in a game like the one we watched last night, you are not allowed to take the ball in the midfield, step over the midfielders of your team, and head with the ball directly in the traffic, because you cause more anonymous damage than the goods you may think you are adding throw doing that.
Some examples of side effects? The team width shrink, the midfielders shatter and move out of position and out of sense (Xavi@first half?), the wingers turn unemployed, the strikers get confused, the defense panic and feel like moving naked with no security, and the opponent feel if they can only get that ball then it will be easy for them to generate a counter attack, specially (again) when the fullbacks of your team move forward together.
I am not saying you can't move forward, but you do so while you are moving in a space, and that will be understood by the midfielders so one of them switch positions with you, but not jumping with the ball in the crowd where your midfielders barely find a space to step, even if the game go bad, DM -the same as CB- cannot just decide to take it on his own swallowing the ball and running forward.
In the second half I can say he was the player I like, he passed the ball all the time to the left and the right, I think the coach had that talk with him, and his respond helped in improving the group dynamics.
One thing missed, Pep is still not doing that tactical trick I suggested once, when things get chained, Yaya and Keita must switch positions so Yaya penetrate to the box and the team cross the ball to take advantage of his physical presence in the box, he will not only have a chance to head the ball to the net, but also through this move he can confuse the defense and open more spaces for his team mates, I hope to see that happening one day.
I tried in this article to discuss the game from another prospect rather than what you may read in most of the football sites, and intentionally I didn't evaluate any specific player in the game because players stocks are going up and down per game for now, I prefer to wait till at least end of December to evaluate the summer transfers made - because fans evaluate the transfer through the players performance per game, so I will not go in more detailed analysis. So I keep it as short as possible - I know, too late.
This is not an article to criticize the team, and my confidence and moral are still unshaken. We need to understand that this is a long season and we will Draw and lose as well as we will win, but even the defeats could be turned profitable if we learn our lessons.
I hope we celebrate guaranteeing the top of our Champions League group this week!
Ramzi Tanani
Posts
20 comments:
Without messi, Barca is less dynamic. In addition, facing opponents like Getafe who would like to pack at the center, the usual playing style of Barca cannot be used.
Barca should change the playing style when facing this kind of opponents. Barca can no longer play short killer passing through the center. That is why Xavi's killer passing did not work and opponents keep intercepting the ball.
Barca needs to play more direct football, crossing more. Some say buying Arshavin can solve the problems. Arshavin have 2 excellent abilities. One is dribbling; the other is crossing. Dribbling won't work in this situation as the center is already fully packed by opponents but his crossing will help.
However, Barca is already full of players who can provide excellent crossing like Alves, Iniesta, Xavi, Helb, etc. It is not necessary to buy another player to provide this. What barca lacks is headers. All the strikers in Barca are poor at heading like Henry, Eto'o, Bojan, Messi, Pedro, Jeffren, etc. Currently, Alves is providing excellent but wasted crossing. To allow this system to work at this situation, we need tall, strong strikers.
What do u think, Ramzi and others?
The problem Josep is that all the teams who want to win trophies pack their centres now not only the smaller ones.We all saw how Man Utd played against us last year.
Barca right now has only 2 original "crossers" Messi and Iniesta and when they aren't around we all've seen the results.Alves is a second crossing option and Hleb doesn't seem to fit there.We need a talented winger and Arshavin is one of them..
Josep, here in this article I answer your question the best way I know, I am aware its a long article guys, But sometimes its not easy to brief more, though I am trying my best, Too much to tell...
nico and Josep, in a way you are representing two of the most spoken opinions regarding the needs and potentials of the team, I still cant decide the quality of the signings yet, too early and keeping in mind they got injured so they are not showing there best yet, so i still feel the right thing is to believe in what we have and there is enough time to make evaluations, but may be i am the kind of people who take long time to make such kind of decisions, so everyone is entitled in his own opinion.
You are always a pleasure to read Ramzi, this is one of your best pieces if you ask me!Lighted on lot of new facts in the game, and thats what make you special! perfect!
Didn't see the game but too bad we only got a draw. Before the season started I said that we need a tall and strong striker against teams like Getafe on the bench and when the gameplan isn't working he can come in and a lot of crosses on him will probably gives us at least one goal.
Hopefully Barca will buy someone like that next summer. This is the transfers that I would like to see:
In: Adebayor, Schweinsteiger (bosman), Leftback, Offensiv midfielder
Out: Henry, Sylvinho, Gudjohnsen, Marquez/Milito
Well said supremo!
I read it for many times and really impressed by the wide vision that i saw.
I just want to make/emphasize that..
Messi wasn't the only missing player on the pitch , in addition Iniesta, Marquez, and Abidal were all missing. and no one can argue the fact that they are all key figures in te team, plus Henry who is at least the first choice sub. for iniesta didn't start the game!
the starting eleven was very adventurous and as Ramzi said with two attacking backs, and no wingers "in the tactical meaning of the word" we was insecure at the back inefficient at the front, and I dont see the players have anything to do with these faults.
but even with this poor start,missing as meny key players
and playing against such a stubborn side and being one goal behind,not mentioning the woodwork participation, we showed a performance that no team in the world is able to show in such curcumstances. choose any team and take 4 of their key players and let us see how will they play a game like the one we played last night?
Thanx Anony, u made it a big challenge that the following must be better, but I think it has to be shorter:)
SimonP I agree, specially when it come to the striker type we need.
Waleed the missing players definitly had an impact beside the tactical structure, but it happens and the best thing about the league (better than CL) is that mistakes and flops are reversable. I am the one who is impressed if you had enough fitness to read the article more than once :)) Spread the good word :)
And by the way,its nice to see you going in depth in your comments, keep it going.
I too was somewhat shocked by the decision to leave Henry (our somewhat tall, strong striker) out of the starting eleven, especially after the comments about Getafe's main weakness being to defend crosses.
And by the way, Ramzi, your articles are much appreciated, you show a lot of insight in the game of football, and your comments are right on the money every time. Keep it up!
And don't say you don't keep it brief enough, in-depth analysis tend to end up that way anyways!
Great review of the match Ramzi, yet again you show another level of understanding than the regular fan. I can't agree with you more on the subject of using two offensive backs at the same time, it leaves the defence too vulnerable.
Works just perfect with Alves basically playing as a left winger and then having 3 defenders in offence and playing with 4 defenders when on the defensive. There is absolutely no need for an extra offensive winger when we already have 7 players playing offence.
The draw against Getafe wasn't a great suprise to me, if we were going to draw against a middle team i would have put money on this one. I can't say i've followed many of their games this season but I did last season when Laudrup were the manager. What i saw were a team who weren't afraid going into offence and were lighting swift at counter-attacks, and actually with quite alot of players who can make a difference themselves.
Hmm i'm not sure i completely agree with you about not depending on Messi. We have quite a depth in the team, but we can't really play with the same tactic as when we have both Messi and Iniesta ready. What works great with Messi is that he pulls in and basically works as a secondary striker while Alves covers the wing, when he is injured we shouldn't rely on the same tactic. I would prefer to have Guardiola playing a more basic 4-4-2 with Eto'o and Henry, Bojan as joker, on the top and then true wingers. Why i say this is, that we lack the individualism, the confusion, the space made by the two injured players. With Messi and Iniesta out the opposing defenders can fall back even more and man mark Eto'o closely. Continuing with the same tactic is simply relying on other players to over-perform in positions and roles they don't usually fill out.
The main problem at the moment in my opinion is, that we have both Iniesta and Messi out at the same time. I have no doubt that the team could actually perform very well with Messi out as long as we could have Iniesta filling out the left-winger position, that is truly our weak spot. Henry has been filling it out very well and he keeps on positively suprising me, however having him out there means that he is lacking as a secondary striker, something i believe is very needed in matches as the one yesterday.
I might be wrong with all this, I just believe that the current tactic is very Messi dependent, it's not the team being Messi-dependent.
BONUS-OFF-TOPIC-INFO:
1) Henrik Larsson just had his debut for Helsingborg Floorball club, while he is still active for the football club.
2) Ronaldinho scored a goal directly from free kick for Milan in their last match.
with Alves basically playing as a right winger*
Everything you said about toure is BS. he's the best midfielder we have, after xavi.
Sorry for being off topic, but I didn't know where to put this. Fabregas has been announced as the new captain of Arsenal. So he will be a lot harder to get now.
Etsp, Regarding Henry Physical presence, you pressed the right bottom and i think till this moment we are not getting advantage of that.
Stigsby, When i was talking about Messi case, i was not discussing if we are dependent on him or not, I ment we must not be dependent, and if we are then its the coaching staff fault because when u look to the squad quality aside of messi and even iniesta you still can notice that yiou can create a tactical structure that drive the team forward, so if it didnt happen then its something the coaches who need to be questioned about, though i think guardiola is heading toward Names independancy but it still need time. lets all remember that he is a new coach and nothing great was expected before january so he need time to make things Gel the way he like. Regarding "I would prefer to have Guardiola playing a more basic 4-4-2 with Eto'o and Henry, Bojan as joker, on the top and then true wingers." I agree on the tactical structure but I think with two pure wingers and an attacking midfielder, the forth player in the midfield has to be a DM, Yaya in specific. so if you put Bojan there then there will be no place for Xavi or he will has to play out of position on the wing. i think to try that tactics, Xavi play in that Bojan place to guarantee ball distribution.
"Anonymous" I understand your feelings, I have nothing against Yaya and he is the player who solved all our problems in the DM position, I was one of the minority who believed the team will not let him go regardless of all the romurs, and that show how much I believe in his quality, I dont let my emotions get into my evaluation(or I try), every player may do things wrong from time to time, and on my standards and the humble knowledge I may have in the game Yaya was not perfect in that first half(notice, I never said he was bad) when U believe more in the quality of a player then your expectations raise higher so i want a perfect yaya not just a good one. The only player who sometimes i fail to be objective about (I admit) is iniesta, but still i said after Malaga game that he had a very bad first half (regardless of the reasons)and substituting him was the right decision by guardiola, so as you see nothing personal:)
Brandon FCB: I think if fabregas had to choose one day or any day between being an arsenal captain and being a CL holder he will not hesitate to chose the CL, so his future depend on how will arsenal show they are building a team for titles, if they failed to prove so then I cant see him staying.
I love articles like this one that analyses a game and the tactics in depth. I am so grateful! Keep up the great work!
What i can't understand is why do we pay a guy 12 millions a year to be Bojan's sub?
And as for Yaya i think he's a good player but not for Barca.He is too slow for us, Barca needs a Davids style defensive midfielder.
Oh Ramzi, when i say a joker i ment a player who can come in late in the games to replace one of the two forwards. It's an expression we have in Danish, thought you could use it in english aswell!
No doubt, Xavi as offensive midfielder for ball distribution and a defensive midfielder as Yaya. That was my intention.
Can't wait to see Hleb play to his fullest, when i saw him in Arsenal he did Xavi-like "golden passes" and i was excited when i heard he was coming to Barca. Too bad he got injured in the beginning, right when he was starting to play well. But ah well, thats what happens..
How wonderful, wonderful article!
Ramzi, as opposed to opninios i would love to read your full view and not the "short" version, i trully do.
Your post describes exactly what i felt when i saw the starting line-up.
In the guessing game, i guessed Pep will start against a team like Getafe (whome i never doubted will cause trouble to any team in the league) in a strong formation.
What do i mean by strong, and why strong?
I'll start with the why - 2 Reasons:
1. Messi
2. Iniesta
It was said that Messi in his place give the team a more dynamic style of play, but the most important thing that i belive Messi acts as is a DEFENDERS MAGNET!
With all due the respect, Bojan, unlike Messi, is still not at a level which he can overcome 2 or more defenders alone, 1 he might shake off without much trouble. Messi was no diffrent at his age - a sea of talent, but not yet composed. Getafe saw that Bojan was having a bad day and acted accordingly, if it was Messi on the otherhand it would have been much diffrent.
Messi's presence makes defences tremble, and in almost every game he plays, he gets double-marked!
Either its the LW helping the LB or playing more defenders - the opposing team looses offensive versatility, and on the other hand, it gives all our other players the space we like so much to play our style of game, and especially to the LW, which brings me to the second reason - Iniesta.
Him and Messi on the wings turned out to be a perfect match for the reasons i said above, only they apply on the LW and Iniesta, which by no means a player you should leave marked by only 1 man.
What is strong?
definetly a 4-4-2.
definetly 3 players on our half AT ALL TIMES!
definetly NOT Sylvinho-Alves-Bojan-Hleb.
If Pep wants to play Sylvinho and Alves together, he MUST provide back-up!
When Iniesta played LW, you could see him running back to help the troubled LB with defensive tasks and building up play following it being done.
I was thinking more of a Guddy-Keita-Toure-Xvi Combo in which Xavi and Guddy would be the more attacking with Keita going all over the pitch - sometimes even the wings, but with a main duty of supplying further defensive purpose, and Toure being our middle wall.
That way, you could play Henry and Eto together as the forwards, with Henry NOT being a winger, and use our 2 left backs to play the wings and cross, Henry than could fall back a little to accept midfield passes and make chaos in Getafe's defense.
About bojan,
Bojan is still a physicaly challengged 18 year old kid, and in his age Messi was no diffrent.
We played as if we had Messi on the pitch, and we didn't. The formation was not altered in the right way.
When i saw Pep saying he will not change the style of play even tough Messi is missing, i thought he will use the regular formation with Hleb replacing Messi, as he is the "best" Messi replacement after Iniesta (If there is even such a thing).
In conculsion:
I think Pep was not prepared enough for this game and i hope he will learn from it, as we go on to Monster Decemeber!
Greets from Israel, Dan
"Anonymous":My pleasure.
Nico, not sure who is Bojan sub, and I think Yaya movement compared to physical attributes is really impressive, his long feet make him look slower than what he is in fact, I feel secure for having this guy in the midfield, we suffered a lot before.
Stigsby I think you use the joker term in english so dont blame the language but me for not mastering it:)Now I know what u mean. And I totaly agree with you regarding Hleb, i am waiting the fantastic Xavi-Hleb due in the midfield, it will come sooner rather later.
Dan, interesting point of view, I think we just discovered a new Rambler:)
I meant Henry Ramzi.I really don't like him but he is a great forward and being left out in the game against Getafe (especially when Messi and Iniesta were unavailable)was a disgrace for him and a tactical error also.
It's obvious that Pepe doesn't like him so why don't we sell him and buy a younger and more ambitious forward?
rambling is fun sometimes :)
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