Messi 2008-2013 was the GOAT of this beautiful game. Every record broken, nothing left standing. He just declined a bit, lost some spark and motivation and also got the team that was once build around him playing huff balls to our ~4mil full backs.
Madrid plays fast football and although they don't have as much possession they play their football much simpler. We tend to take timeeeee....and timeeee with the ball. It can be Messi, Douglas or Pedro but everyone will touch it 3 times minimum before passing.
If he doesn't score but he assists, then suddenly we want him to assist, because that's easier than admitting that we really expect him to score, but our expectations aren't being met.
Here's a clue.
Messi thread going on 3 pages of complaining.
Neymar thread? 2 comments.
You can't have scorer who rarely runs without a ball. You could back in 2011, but now when Iniesta and Xavi are no longer world beaters, you can't. Ronaldo uses fast bursts of speed to attack space and he will hit header once in a while. Thats how he scores goals these days...These days Messi just doesn't attack space at all. He doesn't run without a ball and that way its sooo much easier to control him for defense. Yes, once he gets the ball he is deadly, but compared to old Messi this is nothing.
No, we are spending half of the time passing sideways and players taking 5 touches each before passing it. We are NOT making little short passes with alot of triangles, our passing is completely different these days. Its slow, its predictable and players playing them are too static. We will still do good, we will still go far in CL and we could win LaLiga when Suarez comes back but I expect these kind of performance alot when playing away from home.
And even though his movement was absymall he still isnt solely for blame. There were times where Messi would be free asking for a ball and stupid Pique would hoof the ball right to Alba or Douglas. Just plain stupid but eh...what do we know.
