Our overall offensive game has always been better, when we have what it takes to circulate the ball fluidly. Rakitic may score an odd goal and give assist or two, but our midfield with him is mostly out of depth, overrun by any semi decent team that doesn't sit back. Ffs, this is Barcaforum, people should know better than to only judge people by their stats. Us controlling the midfield so dominantly like we did even against weakened Spurs was something i haven't seen in years.
I agree that not even good controller will help us against tight buses. There needs to be more movement off the ball by the whole team and Rakitic is hardly helping in this respect. Maybe he really know how to position himself in the final third, when opportunity arises (he was an AM before Barca, no?), but his movement as a CM is non existent and he can't handle pressure at all, which makes for shitty overall offensive play.
