Just watched some highlights from 2012.. leo plays exactly the same positions.. it's just the whole team moves a lot more and can actually receive and return passes.
^This. He drops deep and receive passes and theres always someone who can take the ball and pass and drive it forward instead of backpassing. Even strikers like Villa can burst through the wings, dribble players like no other. The hard truth is that players nowadays are extremely predictable aka safe signings by the club, doesnt have a mind of their own and are scared to make any form of decisions, unlike players like Dembouz can sometimes choose to go on his own. They will only pass to one player when Messi is available, even Griezmann does the same.
There's one who ironically said Messi should stop pretending to be Xavi(when leo literally plays in same positions back then) lets be honest, do they think this team can pretend to be like THE Barcelona dream team or even City? Can Bartomeu's antics churn out any form of success? If not, try not to focus on a single player who possibly carried this madness for so many years.
It's what happens when people try to pin the blame on someone whenever shit hits the fan(Messi not scoring goals or making things right). They'll start pointing out his "flaws" brought up years ago. They'll play the "walking", "dropping deep" card whenever they can. Messi more or less has covered many cracks offensively, without him, this team would be in absolute shambles past seasons. I hate to say this but EV more or less has brought the best out of this broken team probably by chance based on his style even though i despised his sub choices. You absolutely cannot expect us to play a possession system with zero wingers. The attack is so deep and narrow, (aka Suarez and Griezmann), has no pace whatsoever, Braithewaite is always on the bench. But for some reason, "tracking back" is always brought up as the number one problem while people see no problem in attack when discussing about forwards. Unreal. Some armchair experts expect Messi just wait and stay up front to receive passes, or make runs when that's not he is good at and it defeats the purpose of a free role, making it easy for opposition to know where he is.
One key moment that strikes a chord with this is when Dembele made that run in behind against Juventus in 2018, where defenders were drawn quickly due to his pace, space was immediately available for Messi to make that cut in and killer shot. With our forwards nowadays, they are so slow which allows opposition have time to organize their blocks, get in position quicker and that means Messi is hounded, esp given that RW-LW situation with Barca is still bad and there is lack of good wing play to minimize this problem. Obviously, he has less options and ineffective decision making due to these factors where they can close him down quicker.
But it's always about "blaming everyone except Messi". It isn't. These has been a huge problem for Barcelona since the start of forever when Neymar started becoming a playmaker. It only becomes more apparent in crucial phases in a more demanding system. Its about making do with Messi with his offensive output till he retires but the fact is that the club made things worse. With the latter in mind why do others expect him to change his game, to stay upfront where the most congested area is where he has no physicality or the lungs and restrict him from having a free role. You can also tell all Messi is losing the morale and mentality to do his best after all these years. You can remove Messi and it will literally still be the same problems.
