10 - Lionel Messi - v3

[blaugrana1987]

This has nothing to do with decline or expectations. Anyone with a decent footballing brain wouldn't be in here giving out about him after every bad game Barca play,why is that a bad team performance is always 5 pages of Messi has declined, he doesn't move enough etc even when everyone else plays shit too? It's so predictable now. I read several fan forums and none of them have witchhunts the way barcaforum does, over on the likes of redcafe, the shedend etc they blame tactics and coaching for bad team performances.

This wasn't the Apoel game where he was just plain bad, there was nothing anyone could do tonight.

BTW everyone we are number 1 in La Liga, everything is going well.

Everyone DOES play like shit, yea, but him making no effort without a ball is very worrying for a team chemistry. No body wants to put their 110% in defense when another guy is walking through whole game. I think today he ran less then 8km. Thats unnaceptible for todays game. Dortmund tore Real a new one and their 5 (FIVE) palyers ran more then 13km.

In defense that means we are practically playing with 10 players (and even in attack when he doesnt have a ball). Mind you, I'm not saying he should aimlessly run around like headless chicken, but he should put more effort like against Elche and Levante.

One great game from Leo again and everyone will be raving about him again. Calling him GOAT. Say he is back. Some people will disappear, some will appear, you know..... the usual stuff.

This forum is too much Jekyll and Hyde.

Messi performing at 70% is still a GOAT no doubt about it.

 

[CatalinR10]

he's been isolated , heavy marked by a long time now but i haven't seen opponents park the buss the way they did when Real won the title. Besides parking the buss , they also let their grass go long , some stadiums even had flowers in the field. He was playing as false nine right in the middle of the buss . He always scored , made something out of thin air. If we needed a goal , Messi was the one to score it. No one was doing shit but Messi saved Barcelona's ass every time. If it wasn't for him that season , I think Barca would have went playing in the Europa league.


Thing is , once Messi played on such a high level that even a buss-plane couldn't do shit about it in 9 out of 10 games. If this game would have happened 2 years ago , Messi would have needed to receive 3 balls near the penalty box to score 2 goals. I don't like how he is used these days. I get the point that playing him as a false 9 makes him really isolated but i don't get the point of him dropping that deep only to make some 3-4 meter passes.

 

[DonAK]

Messi has had trouble with buses before as well, even when he supposedly was at his best. It's not like he was some superhuman(okay, maybe he was but...) who would destroy buses very easily. It's never easy against buses. And Malaga dominated us in the 2nd half anyway. He has a couple of things he need to improve on though. I hope Luis Enrique can make him do that.

 

[Kerrybai]

Everyone DOES play like shit, yea, but him making no effort without a ball is very worrying for a team chemistry. No body wants to put their 110% in defense when another guy is walking through whole game. I think today he ran less then 8km. Thats unnaceptible for todays game. Dortmund tore Real a new one and their 5 (FIVE) palyers ran more then 13km.

In defense that means we are practically playing with 10 players (and even in attack when he doesnt have a ball). Mind you, I'm not saying he should aimlessly run around like headless chicken, but he should put more effort like against Elche and Levante.


Messi performing at 70% is still a GOAT no doubt about it.

It's been about 1.5 years now of talking about distance covered and how much he runs, I think its best to move past that. He has his way of playing and it's not going to change.

He usually likes tpo have the ball played to his feet even if a defender is close by, perhaps that's why he doesn't always try to move into spaces. His movement was the least of our worries today.

 

[CesDel]

Messi has declined we should accept that then adjust expectations of what he should do.

Some people here are still in denial about that

Messi has been the best player in the league so far and one bad game does not change that.

 

[Flavia]

His heat map:

Too far away from goal.

 

[blaugrana1987]

It's been about 1.5 years now of talking about distance covered and how much he runs, I think its best to move past that. He has his way of playing and it's not going to change.

He usually likes tpo have the ball played to his feet even if a defender is close by, perhaps that's why he doesn't always try to move into spaces. His movement was the least of our worries today.

Well there is a problem when you say "yea he runs very little but thats not gonna change so we should move past it". No we can't move past that as thats his MAIN problem. His problem is not his vision, or his balls (when he has them,pun intended) or his dribbling. His problem is playing without a ball.

I think its kind of mix between unmotivated, tired and biggest one not being centre of attack. When he is center of attack he gets more touches, and when he gets alot of touches he runs more. When he doesn't (like today), he walks. Thats the problem, and not passing him the ball (I'm looking at you Pique) when he is free and hoofing it to flanks will exagarate problem even more.

 

[Icarium]

When his teammates suck he sucks. It is not easy to win games on your own.

 

[Kerrybai]

Well there is a problem when you say "yea he runs very little but thats not gonna change so we should move past it". No we can't move past that as thats his MAIN problem. His problem is not his vision, or his balls (when he has them,pun intended) or his dribbling. His problem is playing without a ball.

I think its kind of mix between unmotivated, tired and biggest one not being centre of attack. When he is center of attack he gets more touches, and when he gets alot of touches he runs more. When he doesn't (like today), he walks. Thats the problem, and not passing him the ball (I'm looking at you Pique) when he is free and hoofing it to flanks will exagarate problem even more.

He's always surrounded, all he can do is move deep or move into someones else position which is why he sometimes goes out to the right. He's not the sort of player that will move around a lot to receive the ball, thats why I said we should love past that. We should just play it into his feet feet when he's in tight spaces and let him do his thing.

He likes to play 1-2's in those tight areas which then results in freeing up space for other players. Where is the Iniesta of old that would bring the ball to him and work on combinations to break down the defence? Just play it to his feet and go from there.

 

[Doobs]

Why is he not taking people on like used to? Thats whats really worrying to me. I mean off the ball his lack of interest is understandable (comparatively) but he's not going past people like he used to. At least not in this match.

 

[Doobs]

I think there's a lot of tactical stuff going on with how Messi is playing now and I nor a lot of people here have figured that out yet.

 

[Kerrybai]

Why is he not taking people on like used to? Thats whats really worrying to me. I mean off the ball his lack of interest is understandable (comparatively) but he's not going past people like he used to. At least not in this match.

At 0-0 players are more careful as they don't want to give away the ball and concede a goal. A point away from home is never a 'bad' result.

 

[messi2140]

Look at 4:00. I still dont understand why he didnt take the shot. Instead he gives a simple pass to the side

 

[Doobs]

At 0-0 players are more careful as they don't want to give away the ball and concede a goal. A point away from home is never a 'bad' result.

He's got Rakitic and Busquets covering him, that's arguably more cover than he's had in the last five years. He's the best player on the planet at that anyway. Makes no sense to me right now. This has to be tactical.

 

[Kerrybai]

He's got Rakitic and Busquets covering him, that's arguably more cover than he's had in the last five years. He's the best player on the planet at that anyway. Makes no sense to me right now. This has to be tactical.

Took on quite a few players vs Apoel, maybe it was the pitch.