Last year our team never looked like a great team, though. It was more-so individual brilliance(mostly Messi) constantly bailing out Tito(who waited until the last 10 minutes to make substitutions in difficult matches) while Real dropped a lot of points they weren't expected to. When it came down to important matches(except 2nd leg vs Milan), our team always looked inferior.
Did we look like a great team in 11/12? Sure, we did better in ChL, but we still crashed and burned against a poor Chelsea side.
This Messi excuse is getting stale. Numbers wise, Messi was even better in Pep's last season. So if you really want to give Messi all the credit for Tito's season, what does that make the 11/12 season?
I'm not sure why you bring RM and their lost points into the equation either. We still managed the elusive 100 points - with or without RM being poor.
I'm not Tito's greatest fan, and everybody knows that he fucked up in various off the field areas too, but i still feel some credit should be awarded for that season - especially because Pep did even worse the season before. And this is exactly the point: I don't think he would have done better than Tito. He saw that the team was going stale, and abandoned ship because of this. If he had thought he could right the wrongs, I think he would've stayed. He didn't, and it obviously was the right decision on a personal level, and for Barca too, I believe.
Long story short: Pep saw that the team was going downhill and got the hell out of Dodge. Tito took over the remains and retained the La Liga crown, while he and the team made fools of themselves in Europe. Would Pep have done better? I doubt it.
