Well, that mentality made us lose this game. It's just Alaves at home right, we'll win this by default. Guess... not.
That's exactly what I said in Paco's thread before the game when someone said those words. We as fans can do that as we don't play but players and Lucho should never take any opponent easy.
We clearly underestimated them. I like rotations but it was too much of them this time. You can't change half of your team and expect results, especially considering that two of the players (Paco, Cillessen) were playing their first match for us after 2-3 trainings with the team, then Digne and Denis are also newbies in the team, Mathieu returning from injury and Neymar just returning after spending last 4 months in Brazil. There was absolutely no chemistry in this team and it was expected. I think if we'll play the same lineup in 4-5 months they'll look a lot better but now was not the time to do that. But yeah, Lucho probably thought the same thing you mentioned (it's just Alaves). Yes, most players underperformed but I think this loss is mostly on Lucho. He also admited his fault.
I'm ok with resting Suarez if he's tired (we don't want him to get injured and miss a lot of time) and also Messi starting on the bench to not make his injury worse (we absolutely can't afford to lose him longterm). I can also understand not forcing Iniesta back but other than that we should start our best XI if we're already playing without our two best players. Especially defense. Roberto and Pique should've started, Umtiti probably too instead of Masche who I believe was overplayed with his NT after returning from his minor injury before NT break.
But it is what it is. 3 points are lost and congrats to Alaves for taking them. Geting 4 points from Calderon and Nou Camp, not many teams will do that. They deserved them with good defending and being concrete/clinical in their few attacking actions. A bit of time wasting in last 15-20 minutes with all their "injuries" but we've seen much worse of that from much better teams so I won't grudge that against them.
We should now look ahead. Team is mentally strong enough to not let one loss affect them too much. We need to start CL on a good note and then also get 3 points in Leganes (hopefully not again with 6-7 new players in the team) before facing Atletico.