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:lol:

Right so Messi leaves his CF position :lol: and drops deep so AG moves into that role keeping CB occupied RickyP (if he was ever played), or JA pushes up moves up left to occupy AG's role, etc. It's simple rotation, it's allowed in football! Xavi was building brick by brick when Barca had near...

It was Betis. You're kidding yourself if you think we've created much without Messi dropping deep.

There's just no point in hsving him hanging around up front if you can't get him the ball in dangerous postions, neither of the teams he plays for have been able to do that for years. He's just not a #9 capable of playing with his back to the goal. So if he doesn't come back to initiate play he...

Feel for the lad. Hoping he recovers well, and fast.

Like Romario! :lol: Who's gonna hit the byline and allow the wee guy to rumble in and side-foot it past the keeper. It's not happening.

If he plays every week against teams who are as open as Betis he wins the Pichichi, again. Unfortunately most La Liga teams don't play that way, and Barca don't have the players capable of breaking down such walls. If it was that easy it would have happened already. It hasn't. I think you're...

Pretty certain it was 4.2km

yes.

Way more open, as usual vs Betis.

Exactly, yet some posters think Messi can just stand around and wait for it with the occasional burst through in behind hoping the 'creative' players will thread a ball through a 9-man block. It's a different team, mainly with the same theme. Betis, however always seem to oblige.

^^ :lol: Like playing in a system that they didn't play in previously. FdJ goes from high energy all out transitional Ajax sytem where he breaks beating a player from box area then releasing hard-running forwards to trying to play from out wide to players whose first instinct is basically to...

Is he acctually getting worse. :lol:

Apart from first 15/20 mins Messi was poor, probably one of his worst ever games actually!

Poor game, still a win. Ter Stegen saves thsi team today. Alba was decent, Fati too. Meh the rest.

Watching that through like that you realise what an unbelievable player he is, and that performance was considered by many as awful. Only :messi: could have a 'touches' reel like that. I mean look what he's having to work with in terms of space, personnel, a tough ref, and 10/9 players behind...

Yes, except he wasn't playing in a style previously to how Barca typically have been playing so there would obviously be a need to adapt. He's not been able to for a vareity of reasons covered previously. I feel a bit for him as his career has come to an abrupt high to a full stop. If Messi...

I thought, together with FdJ (Iirc) they looked fantastic in pre-season; great movement and speed of transition. Young and hungry, then boom, Alena gets shipped out, Frenkie plays second-fiddle and Ricky gets shunned. It's bizarre, if you ask me.

I don't think he was brought in to score a shed-load but rather to inject a bit of direct pace to unsettle defences for the more nuanced players to do their thing. The coaches obviously don't fancy him mind.

I agree with this, however I think if you watch the games (which I'm sure you do) you'll see that nothing much happens if you're honest. He's been deferring to teammates more than ever this season and it just breaks down time & time again, even before it begins to look dangerous. He's tried to...