Saturday, 6 April 2019 20:45 BARCELONA TIME CAMP NOU B A R C E L O N A PREVIOUS MEETINGS SLL 24-11-2018 FT Atletico Madrid 1 : 1 Barcelona SLL 04-03-2018 FT Barcelona 1 : 0 Atletico Madrid SLL 14-10-2017 FT Atletico Madrid 1 : 1 Barcelona SLL 26-02-2017 FT Atletico Madrid 1 : 2 Barcelona SCdR 07-02-2017 FT Barcelona 1 : 1 Atletico Madrid SCdR 01-02-2017 FT Atletico Madrid 1 : 2 Barcelona VISCAELBARCA
Suspended: Vidal 1 booking away from suspension: Busquets, Piqué, Rakitic, Suarez Entering with 3 yellow cards: Sergi Roberto, Umtiti Upcoming Liga fixtures: J32 (A) Huesca J33 (H) Real Sociedad J34 (A) Alavés
No real surprises beyond Cillessen medically cleared! Injured are Dembele (targeting clearance for midweek ManU fixture), and Rafinha (out for season). Vidal suspended. Todibo and Murillo not included. All other first teamers included in 18 man squad. Questions generally are who starts at RB? Does Arthur start again next to Rakitic and Busquets after two straight lackluster games? And, if not, with Vidal suspended, does Roberto or Alena slot in;? Finally does Malcom finally get a start in place of Coutinho? So who fills X, Y & Z: MAtS X - Pique - Lenglet - Alba Rakitic - Busquets - Y Messi - Suarez - Z X - I want Semedo to start and I think EV will agree Y - I want Alena to start, but I think EV either goes with Arthur again or plays Roberto; I will guess he gives Arthur the match start but hooks him as early as half time if he is not convincing Z - I want Malcom to start but I guess that EV will give Coutinho the start with Malcom coming on between 45-70 minutes, particularly if Coutinho not convincing or we need a goal. If we are protecting a lead could see a 4-4-2 employed when Coutinho is subbed out. I think that there will be uncomfortable moments to this game, we may go down a goal or look like the 2nd best team at times, but we'll pull out a close win. 2-1.
I'm pulling for 2 of those 3, my only problems with starting Roberto in midfield are that it seems EV usually puts him on as right attacking mid (where Rakitic usually plays and I prefer he stays) and then Roberto and Semedo sort of seem to not have great chemistry when both are on that flank at once, you'd think that they'd do some great overlapping runs, as both can drop back and play RB (and Semedo overlapping with his speed would put the defense on notice), but instead Semedo usually plays conservatively, and Roberto cuts in too often on offense, and we have less of an outlet on that right flank than Alba provides virtually by himself (at least when Coutinho is the LW) on the left flank. But I'd like to see Roberto as left attacking mid.
Yeah, if we can score first they cannot bunker and counter-attack. They'll have to attack even more, and that should expose them to our own counters, especially if we have Malcom and Semedo speed to add to Messi and Suarez on counters. But truly a draw is OK for us but a near disaster for them, so while they might start with counter attack mentality they really will need to force the action either by high pressing us (which is where either a 4-4-2 and/or Arthur's presence could really help), or by their deeper defense leading to counterattacks. Tbe only way they can really bunker is if they score first. So hope we can score first. With a win there should be no more important Liga fixtures, even with a draw we can rotate more, but a loss will force us to play many of our last matches at near full strength. CORRECTION - In my post with the squad list I missed that it is Vermaelen OUT and Murillo IN, a minor detail as I don't expect to see either play, but thought I should correct that anyways and say I hope to goodness that doesn't mean Vermaelen is not 100% (again).
Barça XI 🔵🔴⚽#BarçaAtleti pic.twitter.com/Z7dDlvSDEP— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) April 6, 2019 Bench: Cillessen, Semedo, Umtiti, Murillo, Aleñá, Malcom, and Boateng
----Coutinho------Suarez-------Messi---- --------------Arthur--------Rakitic----------- Alba---------------Sergio-----------Roberto ----------Lenglet-----------Pique------------ -------------------TerStegen-----------------
Bwaaaaaahhhh...Craperto and Crapitic again????????¹111111. And Gomestinho too???? WTF is with this hack manager!!!??11111 Ok, got that out of the way. Onwards to an adult discussion of the match...
Not relevant to the game at hand but my stream kinda sucks: Barto named 5 players who would help aid the transition to the post-Messi Barcelona, all signed to Barca already, 4 playing now, interesting list, obviously age was a factor: MAtS, Lenglet, Arthur, De Jong, Dembele