For how long of that game? Barca totally destroyed Arsenal for an hour in that game at the Emirates but chances were missed and Barca still won the tie and dominated the vast majority of it. The Inter tie was an act of god (ash cloud) and Barca were declining by Pep's last season which tipped the balance of that Chelsea tie which was still lost freakiskly.
Against Chelsea this season the performance levels were poor, Chelsea had far too many good attacks and good chances and Messi saved the day. if we win the CL will I care about that? No, but we won't be beating the likes of Bayern or City over two legs playing like that.
I'm not slating Valverde, I think he's mostly doing what he can with a fairly ordinary team with one extraordinary player.
Most top rated managers had goat level players with them when they had success . It's stupid to give all the credits to players and undermines a managers role in football. It's of at most importance in football . Ancelotti in Milan had Maldini , Nesta , Costacurta , Cafu , Kaka , Gattuso etc . Pep's Barca had holy trinity from Masia ( credits to Pep for promoting Busi at 20 ) . Sachhi had Tasotti , Young maldini , Baresi and the dutch trident upfront . of all the dominant sides over the years i would give Saf lot of credits for winning the treble . If you look at that team ,yeah they had lot of young talents but far from being compared to best players of 90's like Zidane , Rivaldo , Figo , Ronaldo etc . So you can't undervalue what EV is doing . Crediting everything to Messi in a 3-0 win is plane stupid . He was our best player but if it was down to his brilliance alone , Argentina would have won 3 trophys by now. Only decent manager they had since the turn of the decade is sebella and they lost to the best national team at that time in the finals . So managers aren't just puppets in football .
