10 - Lionel Messi - v5

[Mitchell1978]

Yes to all but I felt his level of participation and involvement goes down mysteriously in big/important/high-stake games when it should be going up, for some reason. Head scratching stuff.

not really, against good teams he often sees less of the ball nowadays so he is less involved

You say Messi is not a big game player anymore, with the righ tactics he still would be, without him we wouldn't be in the copa del rey finale or even in second place in the league.

 

[FlaFCB]

Look at the amount of touches per player:

Both cbs and fbs with more touches than Messi. Pique more than the double of touches. Not getting him involved is a big mistake.

 

[dakt]

That's because in Lucho's system, defense is the midfield. And MAtS is the best DM ever.

 

[Pedro]

Both cbs and fbs with more touches than Messi. Pique more than the double of touches. Not getting him involved is a big mistake.

Hard to get him involved when he's mostly walking, no off the ball movement, easy for PSG to have him covered.

 

[defyqa]

Both cbs and fbs with more touches than Messi. Pique more than the double of touches. Not getting him involved is a big mistake.

Nothing new. This pretty much happened almost every game this season. Defense+gk are our playmakers.

 

[FlaFCB]

Hard to get him involved when he's mostly walking, no off the ball movement, easy for PSG to have him covered.

That's not the problem. If it were, Suarez or Neymar would be doing something, and they also weren't.

Messi is also the only one who played all matches this year. 13 games in 40 days. He only got a few minutes after the match vs bilbao, when he was subbed.

 

[Ritchie]

Barca went out to their boogey team in the CL Athletico in last year's Quarter Finals, so going out this year in the Last 16 to PSG is not much difference. The point is Barca are a long way from winning it like they did in 2015, unless they strengthen the midfield and make some changes. They need to focus on the league now and try win that and copa del rey.

The draws we get don't help. If we got a Real draw we'd have a chance. Every year it's tough draws every round and we can't afford to drop our level.

CL is become like La Liga. We need to be a lot better than Real need to be to win it.

Real had their PSG performance last season at Wolfsburg but could still turn it round second leg.

 

[NotInHere]

Barcas domination has come to an end by the looks of it, Messi wont be getting any faster and neither will Iniesta/Busquets/Pique

It's up to Messi if he wants to stick around cause Barca is gonna have to go on rebuilding mode from now tbh

 

[Ripsta]

No shame in admitting it, he was an absolute disgrace yesterday.

He should be commanding the ball, not hiding behind the oppo's defence or walking into space.

I hate Ronaldo with a passion, but if there's one thing he has on Leo it's his off ball movement. He's relentless. Messi waits for the right moments, only difference is when they don't come he simply can't be arsed to go and find them.

 

[SocalBarcaFan]

Just hypothetically speaking would actually playing Messi as CAM with somebody else playing RW work if we somehow got Verratti and played him alongside Busquets? Would that be the best way to play or would you stick with Messi on the RW with a more capable midfield? I don't watch him enough to know but man Verratti looked great yesterday. I know it's just a pipe dream that Barca get him but when you dream you gotta dream big..

 

[mark1nhu]

Sorry, but it is bs. How the hell can the player foresee when it's safe or not to try to dribble?

Oh, come on Flavia. That's the real BS here. Football players are not that dumb, specially a very intelligent player like Messi.

Apparently it is too difficult for fans to understand he is a human after all and he is capable of doing ridiculous mistakes like that. We the fans will always come up with some reasoning to cut him some slack.

 

[Cool]

Just hypothetically speaking would actually playing Messi as CAM with somebody else playing RW work if we somehow got Verratti and played him alongside Busquets? Would that be the best way to play or would you stick with Messi on the RW with a more capable midfield? I don't watch him enough to know but man Verratti looked great yesterday. I know it's just a pipe dream that Barca get him but when you dream you gotta dream big..

Verratti is a fantasy, I believe our set of current crop of players are good enough, it's just the tactics of Lucho are simply not working. I believe the key to be successful is for Unzue or Sampaoli or whoever our next coach is to have a sitdown with Messi and discuss if he still wants to play as a CAM, if he does, then the solution is simple, we need to switch formations.

Our new RW can be Vidal because I believe we won't be out on a spending spree.

 

[BerkeleyBernie]

if you lost the ball, you run back and try to recover the ball. No excuses.

Which is what he did the *next* time he lost the ball (after that goal). The problem was more that he was trying take-ons from deep, in the middle, for no good reason. That's why there was open space behind him. Maybe against scrub teams, but still too risky even for him. He totally misjudged that yesterday.

Neymar's risktaking on the wing, on the other hand, was both smart and rewarded. Unfortunately, unlike PSG, there is little support on Barça for an attacker breaking forward at pace (short of a full counterattack).

 

[FlaFCB]

Oh, come on Flavia. That's the real BS here. Football players are not that dumb, specially a very intelligent player like Messi.

Apparently it is too difficult for fans to understand he is a human after all and he is capable of doing ridiculous mistakes like that. We the fans will always come up with some reasoning to cut him some slack.

Nothing to do with that. His mistake vs Chelsea was way worse. Those will keep happening, it's nothing new.

 

[opjeoff]

Verratti is a fantasy, I believe our set of current crop of players are good enough, it's just the tactics of Lucho are simply not working. I believe the key to be successful is for Unzue or Sampaoli or whoever our next coach is to have a sitdown with Messi and discuss if he still wants to play as a CAM, if he does, then the solution is simple, we need to switch formations.

Our new RW can be Vidal because I believe we won't be out on a spending spree.

I agree, we need a manager who can change things up formation wise aswell. We've played the same formation for almost 10 years regardless of the players we have. The formation should reflect the team you have just like Juve's does. However, we are so boggled down by style and identity it seems we'll never change.