La Liga Round 10: FC Barcelona - Villarreal 3-0

[Messi983]

Barcelona have kept a clean sheet in 5 consecutive home La Liga matches for the first time since 2011.

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

Barcelona have kept a clean sheet in 5 consecutive home La Liga matches for the first time since 2011.

 

[Messi983]

Sure, have to give MATS a lot of credit for that. With his form from last few seasons we'd concede at least 6-7 goals in those games.

 

[Porque]

Good game but why give Pique and Busquets those minutes instead of giving them to Torre (half a year without a single full game) and Kessie?

It was Xavi way of saying "bruddah, I still got ya, ya ere me. Wedda dis storm n u straight back in dis 11".

 

[Nazario1985]

Barcelona have kept a clean sheet in 5 consecutive home La Liga matches for the first time since 2011.

A weak ass LL in fact the weakest in ages.

and MATS form is pretty good for a change!

But don't get fooled any decent team can put 2-3 goals easily with Xavi big brain schemes

 

[malvolio]

A weak ass LL in fact the weakest in ages.

and MATS form is pretty good for a change!

But don't get fooled any decent team can put 2-3 goals easily with Xavi big brain schemes

this feels like those wins vs villareal when we had messi and griezman.

 

[Andresito]

Did Villarreal even have a shot on goal yesterday?

 

[Birdy]

Guys don't try to minimize Villareal as a team...

It was a great performance; the only bad signs were the 2-3 situations where Villareal broke on the counter with long balls to create 2v2 or 3v3 at the back.

Big part was FDJ, as his runs with the ball in between pressing opponents completely neutralized Emery's plan of midblock pressing.


Different context and opponents will need different tactics, but let's move on keeping in mind we dominated against a top-6 (or above) Spain side

 

[Neeraj]

Missed the game last night, just watched the replay. Like mentioned here, they had multiple 3v2, 2v2 situations where any half decent team (think Inter Milan) would have punished us and we'd be 2-0 down. Simple explanation for a simple problem - decent in league sucky in CL. We're just not a very good team.

FDJ was really good and showed what we all know, that he should start instead of Busquets. On another note, I thought Xavi might be making a statement by benching the players from the previous defeats, but no, he brings on Busquets, Dembele, Pique, etc. I think this was clearly a fan appeasement tactic and then he brought them all back on to say 'hey guys no hard feelings'. No other explanation. Could have brought in any of the fringe players, heck, Kessie hardly sees game time and he isn't even a fringe player. I'm starting to really get sick of Xavi and his bs.

 

[JohnN]

Villarreal played to our strengths but also had 2-3 opportunities on the counter. With a better team against us, we could have been 0-2 down before we even settled in our rythm. We need to be much more careful when pulling numbers up front.