I just want to talk about the club as a whole now:
The board deserves the most blame for where Barcelona is today. Lucho deserves a lot of the blame as well but it is the board that hired him. The biggest blame that Lucho should get it is the fact that he has spent an enormous amount of money in the summer and yet this team is worse off than they were last season. The board first made a gamble by getting Tata Martino as a coach despite the fact that he had no experience in Europe and then gave him little backing. And then they replaced him with a bigger gamble when trying to recreate Pep magic and hired someone who hadn't shown at any time that he was ready for an elite and demanding club like Barcelona. I wasn't excited about the Enrique appointment but I wanted to wait to make my judgement but he hasn't shown anything so far to make me believe that he is the right man for the job.
Our midfield was already looking slow last season and Lucho's answer was to get Rakitic whereas Real Madrid went and signed Toni Kroos. The difference between the two players is night and day and Lucho trusted a well past-his-prime Xavi over his new signing in the Clasico. Barca have needed to strengthen the centre of defense for years now but look at the players he has bought: Vermalen, Mathieu and Douglas. Are these the type of players that are going to make a difference at a club like Barca????
Enrique has also shown that it's not just that he can't bring in the right players at the club but he can't get the most out of those that are already there. It's stupid to employ a player like Messi who has scored 400+ goals in his career to play so deep. At times I've seen Messi recieve the ball and there are 5 Barca players ahead of him. On more than a few times, I've seen him play on the wings. Whether it's because that's Messi's own decision or the coaches, but you're not going to get the best out of him there. There are very,very few players in the history of the game that could've scored the goals that Messi did while being given so little space. We saw what Cristiano did when he faced a parked bus in Liverpool at the Bernabeau. How many goals do you think Luis Suarez would've scored at Barca during the last 4 or 5 years??There are some idiots who bought in the whole anti-Messi propoganda that somehow he was the problem and the whole team played for him. If anything Xavi was just as,if not more, important to our system than Messi. Our system was based on a tiki-taka possession style footbal and not on one individuall. Leo was the most important part of a symphony but he wasn't the entire symphony itself. Messi was like the lead singer of a great band but this was not a one man show. There was an over-reliance on Messi for goals but he was the only player in the world that could consistently score against parked buses. We could have made the situation better by adding players that could've been a threat from crosses like Thomas Muller but we keep buying the same small prototypical Barca player and forcing teams to collapse the middle. And it's not necessarily Messi's fault that others couldn't chime in and help with the goals but like I said with the way Barca play and with the way teams defend against us it woud'vel be difficult for anybody. And anyways, even if Messi is playing deeper he needs to work harder off the ball and help out the other midfielders. His finishing has gone down but a lot of it is down to mindset. It's the same reason Cristiano misses on his passes so many times, his mentality is to shoot and score all the time and that's why it's difficult to all of a sudden turn into a playmaker when your mindset is tuned a certain way. Either you use Messi in which you can utilize his abilities or sell him and use that money to get 2 world class players. What i'm seeing right now is Messi playing Iniesta role and Iniesta playing Xavi's role as a more deep lying midfielder. And you're not getting the best out of either of them. Iniesta is a great player but he can't control and dictate the pace of a game like Xavi and he needs to play further forward. I remember watching the PSG game when Iniesta and Messi combined for the goal and wondering where the hell has that been and why haven't we seen more of that.
Anyways, Lucho deserves a lot of the blame but even if we were to get Guardiola tomorrow things still would be difficult. Pep wouldn't have a Puyol or Abidal at the back. Dani alves looks like he's washed up, Xavi is taking his last breaths as a Barca player, Iniesta isn't as dominant and Messi looks like he has aged 3 or 4 years since his muscle injuries (and probably also lacking in motivation). It's tough to stay at the top always and most knowledegable Barca fans were already dreading the day that Xavi would be out of the lineup because of his importance and unique abilities but the Barca board and the managers have made the things worse with their wrong transfer policies for the last many years that has landed us where we are. This club simply doesn't know how to evolve or transition to a new era. Right now, Barca are like one of those old bands that have gotten together for a reunion and like most reunion shows, it's like watching a parody of their original selves. It's really tough to imagine what will happen if the transfer ban remains and if the decision makers remain the same.
And that game against Rayo, I think we won 1-5. And still so many people went full retard and complained that we had too little possession. 
