raskolnikov
Well-known member
To me it makes no sense that at this point both pedro and alexis are above Villa.
David Villa
- Thread starter ammarfcb
- Start date
Semi-Neutral
Sir Alupp Heynrguson
Well... it worked? And you can't say that was only due to luck, because we've won almost every match we could. No team in the world has that much luck.
Ursegor
World Champion
It makes a lot of sense. Both Messi's and Villa's body language in their last goal celebration against Cordoba should give a hint.
Pepe Silvia
Active member
It was a basic hug, there was nothing negative about it. They weren't jumping up and giggling together if that's what you mean. Villa is not mad at Messi, he's upset with not playing enough. Atleast that's the manly way of looking at it. If it is true, that Messi made a hissy fit about not having Villa pass it to him that one time, and Barcelona blackballing Villa because of it, then I'd honestly say that would be the biggest, most blatant b*tch move in the history of the world. I doubt that's it though. Tito has a gripe with Villa but why? It's not for lack of goals. Tito's cover for not playing Villa due to his injury recovery was long past. There is something none of us know and may never know. I just want to see continued success for Villa and while we're at it, the rest of our struggling forwards.
X
xaviniesta
Guest
@ursegor.
agree and disagree here. i think it's very very good to have sombody to score goals and rescue the team besides, like xavi v granada, or alba v celtic, adriano v valencia etc.
although i'm still not convinced especially that the goals don't come from the strikers. i think barca looked most of the game very tootless agains a.madrid, esecially the front 3. this could be really bad, especially in CL this season. i hope tito urges the wingers to take more responsibility and shoot more. and to be more direct in front of goal. with the 4-4-2 in your own half it's pretty easy to take out messi in most part of the game, but as for messi he has shown many times that he scores most of his goals at the end of the game, when the likes of xavi-iniesta and pedro-alexis-villa have already tired out the defenders. i really doubt diego godin would've tryied a backheel pass there like he did it the last minutes in the beginning of the game.
people lauging at messi beating other teams in terms of scoring but nobody laughs when it comes to barcelonas others strikers have scored like what? 10 goals this season? i think even the defense have scored more goals this season.in that stage i would even be happy if alexis-pedro-villa would each score 10+ goals in a season but this would not be happen i guess...
i agree on the lucky, or whatever you wanna call it to, part too. if you look the results it's fine right? 1st in CL group, 1 in the league with record points...but how many games barcelona have really steamrolled? i could only think of madrid 3-2, sociedad, athletic 5-1, getafe 1-4...and thats pretty much it. other than that barca have really struggled in most part of the game.
agree and disagree here. i think it's very very good to have sombody to score goals and rescue the team besides, like xavi v granada, or alba v celtic, adriano v valencia etc.
although i'm still not convinced especially that the goals don't come from the strikers. i think barca looked most of the game very tootless agains a.madrid, esecially the front 3. this could be really bad, especially in CL this season. i hope tito urges the wingers to take more responsibility and shoot more. and to be more direct in front of goal. with the 4-4-2 in your own half it's pretty easy to take out messi in most part of the game, but as for messi he has shown many times that he scores most of his goals at the end of the game, when the likes of xavi-iniesta and pedro-alexis-villa have already tired out the defenders. i really doubt diego godin would've tryied a backheel pass there like he did it the last minutes in the beginning of the game.
people lauging at messi beating other teams in terms of scoring but nobody laughs when it comes to barcelonas others strikers have scored like what? 10 goals this season? i think even the defense have scored more goals this season.in that stage i would even be happy if alexis-pedro-villa would each score 10+ goals in a season but this would not be happen i guess...
i agree on the lucky, or whatever you wanna call it to, part too. if you look the results it's fine right? 1st in CL group, 1 in the league with record points...but how many games barcelona have really steamrolled? i could only think of madrid 3-2, sociedad, athletic 5-1, getafe 1-4...and thats pretty much it. other than that barca have really struggled in most part of the game.
Last edited:
Ursegor
World Champion
I don't blame Pedro or especially Alexis anymore. They are sacrificing their games to get the best out of Messi. If at all it is the coaching staff which should be criticized for turning away from the fluid 3 striker system of the past few years to a 5 midfield system which is just feeding Messi with balls. Messi is averaging 0.3 accurate throughballs and 1.4 key passes per game this season. Last season: 1.5 throughballs and 2.5 key passes. He's making the same evolution as Ronaldo did at his age, becoming more of a poacher. What has been seen ...
T
tariqo
Guest
GiantKiller
New member
Also, Tito is not a weirdo, or an idiot. On the contrary, he seems to be fairly intelligent, and must have some incredibly good coaching skills and knowledge to do what he's done so far, be it season 12/13 or his prior work with Pep. We can rest assured that he will ALWAYS choose what's best for the team and the outcome, and has no personal interest in neglecting one player or another. He's wants the best for Barca not only because he is the coach, but a Cule, as well. He'd have absolutely no positive results on any level for purposely deciding not to play a player who could or would make things better for the team. The player would hate it, the team would hate it, the press would hate it, the club staff would hate it, the fans would hate it, and obviously, he'd have to hate it himself as a Barca supporter for not giving Barca the best that's possible. That's why I believe there must be one hell of a good reason for each decision he's made so far. Why would he purposely do something seemingly wrong if there's a better option? Think about it.
Agree. Tito's been in football longer than I've lived and he seems fairly knowledgeable, obviously. So, I'd prefer to wait and see instead of crying 'Conspiracy' and accusing him of disrespect.
Sociedad 5-1, Getafe 1-4, Vallecano 0-5, Celata Vigo 3-1, Mallorca 2-4, Zaragoza 3-1, Saprtak 0-3, Levante 0-4, Bilbao 5-1, Atletico 4-1. There's a lot of comfortable victories. Messi's second goal against Atletico was the first time in 10 games that Barca scored in the last 25 minutes of a game.
This should put Villa sitting the bench into perspective.
Sanches 1009 minutes played, 1 goal, 4.5% scoring percentage on shots taken.
Pedro 1682 minutes played, 1 goal, 3% scoring percentage on shots taken.
Villa 888 minutes played, 8 goals, 25% scoring percentage on shots taken.
Villa is scoring at a rate approx ten times higher per minute played and his shooting percentage is about 6 times higher that the closest of the two competing forwards. Villa is being sent down the road because Messi doesnt want to play with him anymore and because Villa will not take on the role of being just another player thats job is to feed the ball to Messi. I feel Villa is not playing because they are going to move him in Jan to help finance a move for either Neymar or Falco and dont want to risk an injury. Should Messi be injured right now Barca would be in a major mess.
Explain yourself.
Pedro is in his worst form of his life. Alexis been injured a lot and still he is better than Pedro. I honestly don't remember Pedro doing anything positive in the Atletico game. Alexis had some good moves. Hell save the poor Pedrito as he is being sacrificed to the D10S of poachers.
X
xaviniesta
Guest
what are you trying to prove here? games like rayo 5-0 seem like an easy one but even tito said it was reall really tough game. and it was, especially in first half.
i wouldn't say so. even yesterdays game you could see many times when pedro and messi switched positions and alexis often drifted into middle as well. or both played as strikers.
like here you can see messi in on the wing and pedro up front.
alexis making a run and xavi passes to him
both are on the box, messi far far away.
it ahppened many times yesterday. i feel that messi was playing very far of them. he was never close to them to link up with those guys. once alexis and messi linked up in second half it led to typical alexis-messi goal where alexis did all the dirty part and messi finished it off. to be fair, i don't personally buy that hype anymore that the wingers 'stretch the game and create more room for messi' this is bullshit. there's no need just to sacrifice to players on the wing to make backpasses. they need to be more dangerous, making runs behind defence so messi could see them and make a pass, or take defenders away and create a mess. or beat the defenders to give them something to think of. thats what i want to see more. not something like this, which is very overhyped. what space they exactly create for messi here?
what made 10/11 season so special with this system is that pedro & villa conctantly made those runs behind the defence and thus they scored so many goals, especially from messi's passes. like the 5-0 game vs real madrid is a very good example here.
Last edited:
evilhita666
Barçapocalypse NOW!
What? Who even said that? I didn't say Tito was perfect, but he managed to rectify, and even if those two goals were flukes, the team absolutely dominated Atlético in the second half thanks to the adjustments Tito planned...
F
Flavia
Guest
I often see Messi dropping deep and there's no one making runs. If Tito instructed alexis and pedro to do that, I surely don't get it. When Villa plays, he puts himself in position to score, even if he can't control the ball and finish the move. Pedro also has had many chances to score and failed. Blaming this on Messi is a little far fetched to me.
footyfan
Calma, calma
More than anything, it's Messi who takes defenders away from these guys. In all the tight matches, the opposition leave our wings free and so we see players like Alba and Adriano are far more involved in these games.
They don't make those diagonal runs anywhere consistently enough as in previous seasons. The lower through-ball statistics (which is actually a huge drop) could possibly be due to this. They don't take on their man more either. Pedro and Sanchez are 7th and 12th respectively in the squad for successful dribbles.
Just because Messi is actually scoring when he is in the centre is giving the illusion that the wide players are sacrificing their game. It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game like economics.
They don't make those diagonal runs anywhere consistently enough as in previous seasons. The lower through-ball statistics (which is actually a huge drop) could possibly be due to this. They don't take on their man more either. Pedro and Sanchez are 7th and 12th respectively in the squad for successful dribbles.
Just because Messi is actually scoring when he is in the centre is giving the illusion that the wide players are sacrificing their game. It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game like economics.
Home of Barca Fans
