Why except for Messi? We have Messi why exclude him? You wanna exclude Busquets too ? Why not Coutinho too ? Are you a politician by any chance ?
Because Messi, even though he is a GOAT, he is quite easy to neutralize lately.
And all big teams know how to do it.
And then, since all our players need to pass the ball to Messi in every action, we are so predictable and easy to neutralize.
But my point was more: besides Messi, our players aren't THAT good.
Suarez, people wanted to play anyone over him 2 Months ago.
Coutinho is lost currently and doesn't have a clear position.
Rakitic, lots of people will say that he was never Barca's quality.
Busi, past his prime. Very poor in defense lately.
Arthur, a new kid, has some nice skills but is still learning how to play a forward pass.
Pique, no need to comment.
Umtiti, hot and cold.
Roberto, not a defender.
Alba and Mats good.
So, besides Messi, only world class players still on their prime are what? Alba and MATS?
[MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION] are you serious we can't play better football than the rubbish on display?
Oh, no. We CAN play better.
But not too much better, imo.
If you are among those who have faith in Dembele, Malcom and similar, then I understand why do you think that we can play much better.
My God
. Can you honestly say we wouldn't play better under someone like Sarri?
Mr. Beautiful football & zero titles?
My kind of a guy
I'll pass.
Which squad has better players than us?
City? Who'll never win a CL according to you
No, no. City has a nice squad and unlimited resources.
The problem is Pep and his style, which is awesome for league competitions and a joke (when you don't have Messi to save your ass) in a CL competition against counterattacking, physical (and yet technical) teams.
So, City is a nice team.
Similar to ours, more or less.
Well, they suck without a CR7, true.
Even though people here were writing poems about magnificent Isco and Modric not too long ago.
Yet, technical midfielders can't do shit without goalscoring machines, it seems.
Juve? Maybe but they lost to united so they aren't invincible.
They are not invincible.
But they are equal to us.
Yet, they could score a header or two after a corner at 0:0 in the 80th minute.
Or score with a plan B with crosses to CR7 in the last 10 minutes, which we can't do.
Bayern? They are an old age home
Fine. So, they are similar to us.
Again, unless if you consider Dembele and Malcom as serious players.
No CL is not a sackable offence. Getting to semis while playing good football should be the criteria.
Weird.
We reached semis once in the last 5 years.
Even though we had Messi, Iniesta, Alves, Busi, Suarez, Neymar.
And key players who were 3-4-5 years younger than today.
With that logic, all of our coaches sucked badly.
Its hilarious to see you bend over backwards to defend Valverde. Honest question-Why do you love this mediocre manager so much? Why don't you watch Atletico matches? They seem much more up your alley with workhorses galore and no creativity
I don't even think that Valverde is good.
He is average.
But I find funny comments about majority of posters here.
You are living in a lala land where Barca is still the best team in the world, where Messi is still young and a decisive big match player, where we have a good squad, where TikiTaka is still the way to go and similar romantic dreams.
Imo, we are average.
Messi is old and has his own problems.
A team is relying on him too much and to some extent he is a burden. This always sounds wrong.
But burden in that sense that players are passing to him all the time. Big clubs know that, they man mark him with 2 players, and our gameplan is dead.
They know that everyone will pass the ball to Messi in every action.
And then, if we will start to lose, Messi will sulk and play worse.
And yet, everyone will pass to him, even though he is sulking and walking.
Further, we don't have a leader.
Our players are old.
Too many of them are schoolboys and too nice.
Our transfer were pretty bad (yes, I'll point fingers to Semedo, Dembele, Malcom, Paco, Gomes, Digne, Denis, with a few exceptions).
I'll will make an analogy: saying that EV is guilty for everything is like saying: Rakitic is guilty for everything.
And as if removing Rakitic from a lineup and adding a random differnt player (let's say Vidal) will suddenly solve all of our problems.
It won't.
Busi will still be a turtle.
Messi will be old and sulking.
Suarez struggles with a first touch.
Busi is a comedy in defense.
The same as Pique.
The same as Roberto.
Anyway, we have 10 problems.
EV is one of them.
If you remove him, we still have 9 other problems who won't magically disappear.
Honestly, some of you are so annoying in these romantic ideas that everything will be better without EV, that now I am open for sacking EV.
And then, I would like to see some of your wishes as a coach, let's say Sarri.
Then I'll take my popcorn and wait for a new scapegoat, when we'll still play more or less the same football.
Or possibly, even worse (look at Lopetegui and Solari).
I mean, before Euros, people were writing poems about Lopetegui.
He knows his job, he plays beautiful, he plays Thiago, he plays TikiTaka.
A guy came to Real and made them into a worst RM in the last 10 years.
So, are you THAT sure that mighty Sarry (mr no trophies) would do a better job than EV?
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