People keep saying that we need to evolve and change. Yes, Barca needed to evolve and change against teams who were were parking the bus and giving us real trouble in penetration, Barca needed to initiate attacks quicker and be more direct however, Madrid do not park the bus. That is not how they play, we needed Pep's Barca in these games with sustained possession and build-up which would have taken the crowd out of the game and slowed the pace down but the fact that Barca were trying too many through-balls , too many of which ended in broken plays and which resulted in Madrid gaining confidence and launching their counter-attacks. People keep talking about Madrid's (almost second string) backline but they were also without Di Maria and Barca were lucky that Callejon was playing who is just more of a work-horse with little end product.
So often in the past we've seen Barca maintain and sustain possession with quick short one-touch passing to negate Madrid's pressing. This would allow the Barca midfielders to push further up the field and demoralize Madrid and sap their energy instead of trying this more direct style of football which gives Madrid more confidence because it allows them more opportunity to carry out what they are best at. We needed Iniesta to play further alongside Messi and use his skill in tight spaces to unlock the Madrid defense. This game particularly in the second half was more end-to-end and that's not how Barca play or impose their style.
I kind of feel like the same way I did when I said before the start of the season that I don't think Mascherano should start when we're playing against elite attackers or offensive teams. Cesc doesn't have the skill to provide quick passes in tight space under pressure and that's what will be required on more than a few occasions against Madrid. We needed somebody like Iniesta playing in his role that he used to play and not on the wings.....
I still don't see the conflict between what you are saying and the line-up we are proposing.
Yes, we clearly need Iniesta and Xavi in the midfield. When we beat Madrid all those times, our possession game was off the hook, we beat them by absolutely dominating possession with untouchable tiki taka play by Xavi and Iniesta, and by having Iniesta hooking up with Messi who was more free due to the effectiveness of the tiki taka. There is no debate that against the high pressing teams like Madrid they are most effective.
However, instead of Pedro up front who MOSTLY provides good possession play and sometimes scoring opportunities, why not play our number one chance-creator as a false nine right in between our 2 best attacking players/goalscorers? Plus it's not like Cesc is that much worse than Pedro at tiki taka, he's really not at all. He's just not as good as Iniesta or Xavi. On top of that he can finish. But having our classic possession-midfield combined with the ultra-creative frontline of Cesc (our 2nd top assister) Villa and Messi (our two best SCORERS, who could FINISH the CHANCES Cesc creates) would be icing on the cake.
Let's be honest, Pedro is a great player, provides great stability in our tiki taka play and when he's on form he can finish chances PRODUCED by others. But he is nowhere near the chance-creating creativity of Cesc, who has been our most productive chance-creator this season besides Iniesta. If nothing else, we could start the game with Villa-Cesc-Messi to get some goals early and then Sub Cesc out for Pedro to control the game later with pure MVP Xaviniesta tiki taka.
