Anyone else notice Messi is losing his godly powers, he's playing like a mortal. Dembele is our future!
If Raheem Sterling II is our future, we're f---ed! But fortunately, your prognosis is grosly premature. Messi just coming back from injury remember.... (and still has a goal and 2 assists this week).
Messi isn't losing his powers. He had a damn good first half. When you take a couple of good shots on net and the opposing goalkeeper saves them, you say kudos and move on. His dribbling and motor didn't seem to get up to full throttle today but it's ok to conserve a bit of energy in early December. To be honest, I would prefer to see Barca rely on Messi less. Sometimes when he's out of the match, the other players actually take things into their own hands more. If that happened with Messi we'd be a much better team IMO. At this point every opponent we play comes into the game trying to nullify him and we have to use other weapons like Dembele more consistently.
Seems to be he has lost a little sting off his shot. Like I said, Dembelé had his best showing today in a Barca shirt specially in the first half. He still made some really careless passes back but overall, his influence on the offense was good and what the team was looking for when they looked at him as a Neymar replacement. Unfortunately playing on the right creates a problem because that's still were Messi typically plays. But we do need something like Dembelé on the team as long as he keeps improving and sorts his life outside of the field. If he improves his passing he can be really good. Not sure how good he'd be on the left. That would mean dropping Coutinho back, but now we have Arthur and I like the defensive grit Arthur has over Coutinho. That'd push Coutinho to the bench. I think VV has will have his hands full trying to figure out the best solution if Dembelé starts performing consistently on this run of games. Semedo has been doing well. Stupidly ran into trouble once today coming out from defense and still a poor crosser of the ball. But overall good. Combined well with Dembele a few times today. Wondering how they do against better defenders though.
You ,mean 33 year old Santi Cazorla? Pretty sure he wanted to return to where his professional career began for the twilight of his playing days.
Helmond Cup update: FC Barcelona 2-0 Villarreal Next: Wednesday 5 December Copa del Rey, 4ta Ronda, Vuelta FC Barcelona -v- Cultural Leonesa Twice in one season!
Funny to see EV getting jeered and booed for Vidal sub! I guess camp nou agrees it was the wrong guy to be subbed.
I think the fans saw that Vidal had a good game, Coutinho did not, and Vidal offers more in terms of defense and protecting a lead, so they did not mind Alena coming on, but preferred that Coutinho (or maybe Raki) get subbed off. Of course Alena wound up being an inspired choice. Just wish Vidal had not made the exasperated face on getting pulled.
Yeah, wrong sub IMO. Not only because Vidal was arguably our best midfielder of the day (including Coutinho), but even if he wasn't, is it really worth the risk of creating another squabble in the dressing room?
Vidal is doing many things right currently. A little bit more ability to put ego aside at times, and his quality/value jumps another level.
Exactly, all in all EV is not in touch with reality but with pushing his agenda to play players he likes personally in terms of perhaps personal chemistry rather than performance. He needs to get this shit right, Barca can't handle another Roma debacle.