Originally a Kinks song...for the record I totally agree with that statement. Throw in Shaktar and Arsenal as teams that can cause some damage too.
There is no chance of Puyol leaving the club and nor should he. If the club actually want to bring in money then a player who could be sold is Alves, he would still command a considerable tranfer fee and has in my view been on the slide for a while. But nothing will happen till the summer.
That really is a ridiculous piece. Puyol is FC Barcelona and will never even be considered to be sold. Cuenca hasn't played because he's been injured for months, JDS has two quality players to compete with in his position, Afellay is out on loan and been fantastic, while Alexis is just out of form at the moment; Cesc was too before he got going not long ago and I am sure Alexis will do the same eventually. Still a valuable player. I think Dortmund can be put amongst the favorites this season. Shakhtar and even Celtic have to be taken very seriously as well, they can definetly pull off the unthinkable. They've been brilliant in every CL game so far this season. For all the negative things people have to say about modern football, this sure is one of the most competitive Champions League seasons ever. So many teams can win it. Good luck with finding one. Every player can get injured, no one is prone or invincible to them. There is no central defender in the world who never gets injured.
That was a slap, we got Chelsea'd again. Let this be a wake up call, and yes I've liked Celtic for a long time now. Sigh, now we have to play the starters in MD5.
I think we should have bought Aguero when we had the chance or even dare I say Tevez Hell even Falcao, just for the sole reason for all this bunkering, maybe when we get Pique, Biscuits and Abidal, then we will get some height but we need a tall striker who is powerful when he can kick it from 20 yards and be on target
We actually scored twice against Chelsea last season but we conceided 3, we also created many chances today, hitting the post and Messi scored too at the end from a fine passing move... but we conceided 2. Go further back against Inter milan in 2010, we scored twice against them but they scored 3. So we did actually find the net against those park the bus team.
the thing is that I don't think Falcao is gonna be happy of being a 'supersub' for just when teams are bunkering. He's a pure 9 and we all know Messi is our CF pretty much all games. Aguero or Tevez yeah maybe, but they very expensive and really are no different than Villa or Pedro , very similar in characteristics and even the same height so they won't give us any extra advantage when lookin for a goal through headers when against teams that park the bus.
Aguero and Tevez will score more goals than Pedro, Sanchez & Tello but again park the bus? the result would be the same, most likely. Tevez though has scored 8 times against Chelsea, at least 4 of them from outside the box. But you put him on the bench or sub him in few games and he will start talking crap.
prolly putting in Villa earlier would had been better. having two real goal threats instead of just one would force them to not put all the marking on Messi, free up some spaces, etc.
Yawn. What are you going on about? Barca's first loss this season (since preseason). Why the need to revamp the style and players of the team? Also (and this is not directed at you specifically) its getting kinda tiresome how the Barca newcomers are always to blame when Barca has a bad match. So for this season that means Alexis and Song. I guess Bartra is next on the chopping block. Can't say any thing bad about the obvious weaknesses on this team: VV and Mascherano. Also Pedro hasn't scored a single goal all season. Not that he's a problem but he seems to "get a pass" when doing nothing, unlike Alexis.
Our defence will (at least I hope it will) improve as Pique and Puyol come back and hopefully, at some point, Abidal as well. Midfield is not an issue, but if there is a long-term "problem" (if you can call it that after making the best start, after 10 games, in the history of the club and 1 defeat in a competitive game) than it is similar to the one last season. Namely that we are going to be over reliant again on Messi scoring the majority of our goals. Pedro has not scored for Barca for 13 games, Aleix at the moment is about as useful to Barca as a eunuch at an orgy and Villa is still very slowly being eased back into the team. Whilst I don't think this will be such a problem to us in La Liga, where I think it will cost us is in the CL, especially if at some stage we have to play Man Utd or Chelsea. Personally I would far rather Barca won La Liga, the CL is the toughest it is has ever been this season. There is no one team that stands out above everyone esle. Bayern Munich look very impressive and have goals in them, Man Utd and Chelsea (like most English teams in the CL) have that really annoying knack of not playing well but still being able to win, both Barca and LPB have defensive issues and after that you have a host of good sides such as Dortmund/PSG/Porto/Juve/Schalke/Arsenal etc. And as for people not cricisiting the likes of Valdes/Masch/Pedro, wull for a start they do get criticised (especially Valdes) but they are given leeway because they have won everything at Barca whilst they have been there, so yes that does entitle them to some grace from criticism. Where as Alexi is a very big money signing who fails to deliver on a regular basis. That's not to say he won't and can't, it's just that he's has not been this season at all. And that is not "hating" on him so don't come back with a silly remark like that.
Probably everyone but Messi. I mean what do we think we are doing? Supporting a football club? Losses happen, and thanks to all the players we have, they happen to us very rarely. Gimme a break.
The loss is not an issue at all for me, I'd much rather lose last night's game than the one against Mallorca, we are still going to win the group so big deal. And I'm fine with losing to Celtic as well. At least we got it out of the way, now what I would like to see is Messi break Pele's record at the weekend.
Would have rather lost to Celtic than on the weekend as well. I think the fans and media get caught up on the money paid for a player in transfer fees, when really that's not the fault of the player. Torres is a 50 million euro(?) man. Andy Carrol is a 35 million euro(?) man. It's not Carrol's fault that he had a decent 1st half of the season and Liverpool decided they wanted to spend 70% of their Torres money on him. He was what he was, and maybe he didn't fit into their system, I don't know. I think he's at West Ham now, and I had the tv on in the background and people were saying he's pretty good there. My point is, Sanchez hasn't performed that well this season, no secret. Pedro hasn't either. Two things work in Pedro's favour which are pretty much the same thing: he's from La Masia, and more importantly he didn't cost the club a cent in transfer fees. I think there's a bit of a halo effect amongst fans. I know we were on his case last year, but he's making some smart plays, and he tracks back, Sanchez too. They both are hard workers, where Sanchez gets tripped is sometimes he tries to do too much. These guys just need to start taking more shots at the top of the box, to try and force defenders out to block them. These days we tie a player's performance to the acquisition cost, which is logical. Except sometimes owners pay ridiculous amounts (Carrol and Liverpool are an example, or Kaka and LPB). Player of the year (one year removed? I think) at the time of his arrival and look at him a few years later, can barely get a look in the team. My affirmation is that he's still pretty good, but we don't know for sure because he doesn't play often enough. While it's true a player's abilities can disappear quickly, for the most part the players are who they were prior to their transfer fee obtained. Torres was already long struggling at Liverpool before he swooped up. It's not like he was banging in goals and then he moved to Chelsea and then stopped scoring. It's just that a label of "50 million" is attached to him now, through none of his own doing, he probably should have been 25-30 million. Sanchez and Pedro have scored pretty much nothing between them this season as forwards. It's funny because Sanchez could have scored on a header, and I was inbetween streams, but didn't he have a perfectly legit goal ruled out on the weekend (or during the Copa actually)? If both of those go in/count all of a sudden we're saying "Sanchez is on a roll now, everyone watch out".
Listen mate, Carrioll is not good, at the very best he is avergae, he has scored 2 goals in his last 30 EPL games, yes it's not his fault that he cost £35 million quid, although whoever santioned that at Liverpool should probably be sectioned, after all Aguero only cost 3 million more than that. There seems to be a mdeia campaign to hype the bloke up, especially by Sky so everytime he wins a header the Sky commentator will get so excited that you would think he had just scored a goal that was better than Maradona's second against England in 1986. I believe this is called "being on message". I think that Liverpool went on the worst spending spree in the history of football last season, as well as the £35 million on Andy Carroll, they brought Stewart "call me Mr Average" Downing for £20 million and Jordan "I should be playing League 1" Henderson £16 million. To put that in perspective, Michu cost Swansea £2 million and he has outsscored all 3 of them already.
All I am saying is I swear more and more peeps are going to keep doing this crappy score a set piece and defend for their lives hell if Celtic can do it, then any team, with 11 men can do it
Henderson is a very good player actually, who just needs to be more fearless in some situations. He hasn't played much this season but he was a good signing, much better than those two. As for Pedro and Alexis, I'm worried about their scoring form too but it's a long season and hopefully it'll come to them eventually.
Please don't be offended by this, but that is the funniest thing I have read for ages, really ages, hilarious.
It wasn't quite as simplistic as that but you have a point. Neil Lennon got it right tactically. We did the same thing 2 weeks ago at Camp Nou and almost pulled it off, and we went one step further last night. The idea, from what I could tell, was to allow Barcelona space on the flanks and keep everything tight in the middle areas. Reduce the space in the middle as it seems you are far more dangerous in that area. Covering the whole of the pitch against a team with the skill and ability of Barcelona isn't going to work. Wanyama, Mulgrew and Ledley formed a shield in front of the back four in the centre of the pitch and congested the space. There was no diving into tackles as there were always plenty of teammates around to offer assistance in dealing with the threat posed. Of course, to win the game you need 3 things - * a large amount of luck * a goalkeeper on top form (even with the above tactics you're never going to completely stop Barcelona from creating any chances) * focus and concentration for the full length of the match It's mentally tiring to have to be on your toes defending for the large part of a football match. It's no surprise that the 3 goals Barcelona scored against us over the 2 matches all came at the end of the 45min periods. But we didn't defend for our lives out of choice. It becomes a necessity when playing against a team with the ball retention that your players exhibit. Incidentally, the set piece scenario really does need looking at. Neil Lennon stated that he knew Barca played zonal on corners and Alba covered the back post. It was simple enough for Wanyama to pull off to the back stick, and, if the delivery was good enough then it was going to become an aerial duel between him and Alba. No surprises Wanyama won that and got his effort on target.
Erm, not sure what you're on about but Henderson is actually a good player when he is played in his natural role. He isn't a freaking winger no matter how many times Kenny put him there. Watch some of his games this season, he has been near flawless.
I congratulate Celtic for their victory. Those that are criticising there appraoch last night should have some sense of perspective, Celtic's entire squad cost in the region of £8 million quid, compare that to Barca's. They had a game plan, stuck to it and got there reward, well done to them.
Yup exactly! I loved how Tito rested Villa for the CL game and played him almost a full 90 minutes against Celta Vigo. He understands that September to February its all about La Liga. After that you can set priorities based on where you are in the various competitions, but for now its La Liga that should get the focus.