I think you all know my thoughts on why I think we are conceding so many at the back, so I won't go over old ground again. However, it is pretty obvious that things aren't going to plan at the moment, 3 loses in the last 4 games would underline that. I don't want to get into the old argument of whether Villa should start over Pedro, or whoever the flavour of the week is, but something fundementally has gone wrong. One loss, fair enough, 2 loses, you start to pay attention and 3 loses you start to panic. And for me it is not just because we lost, it happens and we have lost against Milan and Madrid, hardly a disgrace but it is the manner of the defeat that is most alarming. We are all over the place at the back and we are not threatening in possession. We are passing it around like the England national team, in our half and from side to side.
With Xavi we might be seeing the end of perhaps the best midfielder ever, a moment that I have been dreading. Yes, it might be just a blip as some would have it, yes he may just be struggling with an injury but either way the fact of life is that he will retire sooner rather than later and you can clearly see the drop in the team performance when he is not at 100%. What is the solution?
I have been an avid supporter of Thiago but he really did have a terrible game at the Bernabeu, his progress has somewhat plateaued in recent matches (it may be interesting to note that he has started in the last 4, of which we have lost 3) which might just be one of those things or that he really isn't a central midfielder and should be playing a little higher up the pitch. I don't know but I do know that he isn't going to be able to take on the Xavi role for some years yet and we may not have that long before Xavi is no more.
Iniesta is not the answer as relacement for Xavi as we would create a false economy situation where we would have to find a replacement for the role that Don Andres plays for the team and in all honesty my feelings are that they are different types of players anyway. The obvious answer is that Cesc should be playing that Xavi role, but for some reason the coaches don't seem to trust him in that role. I would put him there every day of the week and ask him to take on more defensive responsibility.
The other option is Busquets. He was a striker in the youth teams, has the technical ability and passing ability to play a little higher up in my opinion. I would like to see him play as a CM and see Mascherano back into a DM role. Play Messi up front, Villa on the left and Pedro on the right.
-------------VV------------
Adriano-Pique-Puyol-Alba
-----------Masch----------
--------Busi----Cesc-----
--Pedro-------------Iniesta
-----------Messi----------
I also think that Busquets has not been putting in the effort to get around the pitch that we have seen him do in the past. Alves and Alba played togther gives too much room for the counter attack teams to exploit; but Busquests needs to be getting back in between Pique and Puyol when we don't have the balland he has not been doing that. I think that Mascherano will give us a little more cover until our defence (if you can call it that) gains a little bit of it's confidence back.
Messi is not helping by coming so deep to get the ball either at the moment.
Christ alive, we do have a few problems!
