David Villa

[oz187]

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.

The team is winning games comfortably while playing within itself, both at home and in away games. They don't steamroll teams, but they're not trying to steamroll teams. They play with the intensity to win games. They struggled more at the start of the season and scored lots of late winning goals(Sevilla, Granada etc) but are now getting comfortable leads earlier in the game. They could win games by bigger margins but they save their energy. They have mastery of La Liga to the point now where they reduced the 2nd best team to absolutely nothing for the whole second half.

 

[BerkeleyBernie]

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.

It's set up that way: it's clearly Barça strategy to let Messi do what he wants, and the rest of the team adapts. He rests for large portions of the game, I suppose reserving his energy for his dribbles, especially later in the game. He spent the first 10 minutes literally walking with his back to the central defenders. When he decides to move to another area of the pitch, the other players adapt their shape around him (i.e. when Messi decided to spend a spell on the right side, Pedro became central striker for that period).

When Messi has the ball on the dribble, he does drag the opposition and create space for his teammates. But he's relatively static off the ball when up front.

 

[La Furia]

It's set up that way: it's clearly Barça strategy to let Messi do what he wants, and the rest of the team adapts.

This.

 

[Garrus]

It's set up that way: it's clearly Barça strategy to let Messi do what he wants, and the rest of the team adapts. He rests for large portions of the game, I suppose reserving his energy for his dribbles, especially later in the game. He spent the first 10 minutes literally walking with his back to the central defenders. When he decides to move to another area of the pitch, the other players adapt their shape around him (i.e. when Messi decided to spend a spell on the right side, Pedro became central striker for that period).

When Messi has the ball on the dribble, he does drag the opposition and create space for his teammates. But he's relatively static off the ball when up front.

He's been like this since the start of the season, I was worried that this new 'static' state would hurt his game, But again messi proved wrong, He may not be all over the pitch like he used to, But he's delivering better than ever.

But i still don't know how tito is going to use messi against parked buses, Chelsea before, Granada, And celtic, Messi didn't make an impact, I hope he figures out a solution

 

[JonM]

What boggles my mind, Is that when you show your dissatisfaction about let's say the teams results, There's gotta be some standard or reference for you to compare and hence conclude that the team isn't doing okay, So which one did you use exactly in here?, Cause it's sure hell it isn't last season, Where holly fucking cow, where in the first half of the season drawing was our 2nd best hobby, Even in the other 3 years with pep, We didn't get this good of a result.
Even our famous 16 wins run in 2010-2011, We had 2 set backs before it, And games we barely won it!, And we were almost injury free at that time.

Seems like it's no longer sufficient to win games. You have to crush the opposition every time or else there's a crisis. Because beating Betis 5-0 now means we'll beat Bayern or Juventus in four months, obviously.

 

[La Furia]

Seems like it's no longer sufficient to win games. You have to crush the opposition every time or else there's a crisis. Because beating Betis 5-0 now means we'll beat Bayern or Juventus in four months, obviously.

Such a sense of entitlement..if we don't blow out the Bayerns of the world it's not good enough.

 

[Garrus]

Seems like it's no longer sufficient to win games. You have to crush the opposition every time or else there's a crisis. Because beating Betis 5-0 now means we'll beat Bayern or Juventus in four months, obviously.

+1
Barca fans seem to forget, That dominating in football, Is something godly!, Because it's such an unpredictable game, Even when games where we played messi, iniesta and xavi, against weak la liga teams, We sometimes didn't win or sometimes we even lost!, Logically this shouldn't happen, Cause the the level of these player is just way way above those poor opposing players, But that's just football.

 

[Garrus]

I think they are still 'intoxicated' by our home games results of last season, I thought after losing the league to real madrid with 9 points behind, They'll realize how these home results indicate nothing about the state and the health of the team, We were beasts in home, And headless chickens in away, We won 8-0 against osasuna, Then they thrashed us 3-2.
So yes, I'd rather win just 4-2 in camp nou than 4-0 or 5-0, if it means we win in the away, We are in the best shape possible, And there is nothing to complain about.

 

[Armando929]

Strange to see how Tito clearly prefers Alexis over Villa. And even more strange to see that a few members on here are also on board with that.

Alexis doesn't score, every now and then gets an assist, and often seems out of tune with the team. I love his hustle and defensive work, but he doesn't bring more to the table than David Fucking Villa.

Its definitely a head scratcher.

 

[Garrus]

Strange to see how Tito clearly prefers Alexis over Villa. And even more strange to see that a few members on here are also on board with that.

Alexis doesn't score, every now and then gets an assist, and often seems out of tune with the team. I love his hustle and defensive work, but he doesn't bring more to the table than David Fucking Villa.

Its definitely a head scratcher.

2 of the last 4 goals scored by messi were because of alexis drawing defenders away from him, So yeah that's why

 

[Armando929]

Yeah but does that alone warrant him having the starting spot over a many times proven world class player??

A player that is better than Alexis?

Doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[Garrus]

Yeah but does that alone warrant him having the starting spot over a many times proven world class player??

A player that is better than Alexis?

Doesn't make much sense to me.

Actually it does warrant, Tito like any coach, will always look for the most efficient and effortless win possible, If it means starting alexis just to allow messi to score goals and finish the game, Then so be it.

When we talk about villa, We should talk about his current state, Not what he used to be, Unfortunately he's not back for his former self yet, In many games where he started he was a flop, The only one in my mind that he performed relatively good was against alaves and celta vigo.

It's all up to villa not tito, If he returned to full power i don't think tito will hesitate to start him

 

[Richard.H]

Strange to see how Tito clearly prefers Alexis over Villa. And even more strange to see that a few members on here are also on board with that.

Alexis doesn't score, every now and then gets an assist, and often seems out of tune with the team. I love his hustle and defensive work, but he doesn't bring more to the table than David Fucking Villa.

Its definitely a head scratcher.

Yeah I don't understand it either. I barely even post on these forums anymore because I'm simply scratching my head reading all the responses thinking whether I live in an alternate reality or not.

 

[ammarfcb]

c-c-c-c-c-c-combo breaker

staying onside

 

[Cule4life]

c-c-c-c-c-c-combo breaker

staying onside