10 - Lionel Messi - v1

[Valon]

He was good IMO, not wtfdidyouseewhathejustdid good but good like Bojan said he helped the midfield a lot.

 

[adil_909]

he'll be a different animal at the nou camp, that's for sure.

 

[Gnegneri]

I think his name gave us the two openings for Zlatan's goals.

If Pedro was running there, I don't think Vermaelen would have left his spot.

 

[Jesse1509]

What he did, he just allowed himself to be kinda invisible, so Ibra could play one-on-one against Song. Messi took Vermaelen with him, and therefore Ibra was able to score twice.

 

[Interista]

Both goals were basically about Ibra's run and Pique and Xavi's pass. Messi didn't even make a run other than moving slightly deep to intercept. What is true however is that he takes a lot of attention. There was three Arsenal players following him closely on both goals.

As for Messi's match. it wasn't great. Wasn't bad either just anonymous offensivly apart for the first 25 minutes. It's stange that you can't get Ibra and Messi to play great at the same time. Probably the only match where I thought both were brilliant was against Dynamo at the Camp Nou.

 

[diegomessi]

thought he was pretty good nearly scored gave them problems but i fully expect him to have even more effect in leg 2

 

[evilhita666]

His face when he was subbed pretty much sums up his performance today... He probably needs some real rest...

 

[Juan03]

poor Messi he has set the standard so high that when he has an okay game it automatically turns into a "bad game" he drew defenders, helped pressure to get the ball back when we lost it, and helped the midfield by just keeping it simple with posession. not a bad performance by any means, it's a shame Pep took him out he might've scored at the last minutes

 

[Hydro2oo9]

He wasn't bad at all today, he played well as a team player and didn't put a foot wrong. He didn't need to just start running at players today, as the team was working well as a unit. Knowing Messi, he will have probably gone on to score in the dieing minutes, with Arsenal equalising(just before he came off), he made a few runs in the first half and had a decent shot on target. Not a bad performance, but not one of his classic performances either. With it being all or nothing in the return leg at Camp Nou, I expect us to see a more explosive performance from him.

 

[yusuf]

looke exhausted but his control was great in the mid, hopefully he will be back to his world beating self next week\

 

[barca96]

i thought he did ok. just because he didn't make those crazy runs doesn't mean he had an off day.
but he should've tried harder considering the space he got at times.

 

[Gnegneri]

He never scored in an away KO game under Pep (except the final, but that's a single stage game) and also didn't play like MESSI. So nothing to worry.

He did score in all the trashings in Camp Nou though. So no worries at all!

 

[utility73]

i thought he did ok. just because he didn't make those crazy runs doesn't mean he had an off day.
but he should've tried harder considering the space he got at times.

I had the impression that Arsenal concentrating on shutting out Messi opened lots of spaces for the rest.

 

[Quash]

He was triple marked quite effectively at some points, but he just really off his game today. Those solo spunkages in recent times were kinda badly timed tbh considering the difficult games ahead. Ah well, not complaining that he scored, so let's just hope he can refind his titan form again

 

[Metaphysical]

As for Messi's match. it wasn't great. Wasn't bad either just anonymous offensivly apart for the first 25 minutes. It's stange that you can't get Ibra and Messi to play great at the same time. Probably the only match where I thought both were brilliant was against Dynamo at the Camp Nou.

probably because when they're both on the field, opponents usually pick one of them to gang up on. this frees the other to get involved and make plays happen.

arsenal swarmed messi whenever he had the ball, this created so much space for the rest of the team.

plus hey, messi was poor in stuttgart too. hopefully he'll turn it on in the second leg where it'll be a tighter affair where his dribbling (which he didn't do that much of yesterday) can make the difference.