Spanish Football 2011-2012

Somnambulist said:
While I hate Busquets as a person, as a player he's actually pretty tidy, I'd be curious to see his pass completion rate. He rarely gives the ball away (tends to fall over as if fouled when he does) and does start quite a few of their moves off by finding a pass to Iniesta/Xavi/Messi which then leads to a goal.

There's a few vids on YT like this (obvs a biased Barca fan) but he gets more praise from his team-mates and other players than I realised.


As for defending under the cosh... well, not so great perhaps.
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Busquets plays identically to Michael Carrick, yet one is apparently brilliant and the other is lambasted by his own fans for doing nothing wrong. Football, bloody hell. :o
 
FeFiDoh said:
I think a lot of the trouble is the Barca players are looking leggy! They don't play with the same speed at the moment. They play A LOT of the same players over and over they have long seasons play a lot of games and are going to get burnt out.
Think last season a bunch of those players played most of the season, the world cup and everything else on top, not much of a break and back on it this season.

They lack the depth a lot of the other clubs have (in terms of big well name established players already not the midfield factory that is the La Masia).

Look at how much quicker they played when they went 1-0 behind and almost scoring.
They do need defensive cover and they need to be able to rotate more, which with the signing of Fab and Sanchez who unfortunately was getting some good form and then a few weeks out does at least give them a few more options.
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and the fact they're all 5'3 would mean they need to move their little legs faster than everyone else. :p

I don't think its down to fatigue. Maybe they just believe in their own hype too much and think they can just breeze through games? or maybe teams are going up against them like their lifes depend on it. The season they had last season is one in a million. I honestly don't think we will ever see a team do what they did last season. They played total football.

I think Pepe has a huge challenge on his hands now. They really need a new CB, Puyol is getting on and isn't always fit. Pique as good as he is makes amatuer mistakes. Biscuits and Javi are not the answer.

Bruno Alves could be a good buy for them.
 
Pique is much better when Puyol is next to him but as you say Puyol isn't likely to be playing as often as he was a few years ago.

I think part of the problem is also down to the fact they don't seem to play with the same urgency all the time and go into games they think they should win and don't seem to push quick enough.
For a lot of the game yesterday the passing seemed pretty slow and no purpose, like I said when they went behind they stepped it up started passing it around quicker.
As you say maybe they do believe they will win every game so don't get out of first gear until they need to.
Against Milan they played better but they had to win that game and although the score says it was quite a close match it was a stunning individual goal from Boateng and Barca should have tucked away more.
 
I think its the fact that last season it was always the same team.. well pretty much the same team.

Villa - Messi - Pedro
Iniesta - Xavi - Javi/Biscuits
Abidal - Pique - Puyol/Javi - Alves
Valdes

Now they're bringing in new talent and using their squad. Thiago, Sanchez, Cuenca. Fabregas has fitted in fine, he will have no problem in the team.

Look at the player ratings for Barca - http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/football/liga/2011-2012/getafe-cf-fc-barcelona-458704.html

Messi got 4.6. Look at their midfield. They need iniesta and Xavi on at the same time. I think Barca might be going through a transistional period right now. Xavi and Puyol aren't young anymore. I think they worried about replacing Xavi with Fab instead of looking for someone to replace Puyol.

Look at SAF and Man Utd for example. Jones and Smalling will replace Vidic and Rio. Break them into the team now so when Vidic and Rio are done, it will be an easy transistion.
 
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It's a fair point but I think Fabregas is Iniesta's replacement rather than Xavi's. I can see Villa leaving and Iniesta moving up to the LW position again next season. A midfield three containing both Fabregas and Iniesta just seems a bit unbalanced to me because I think both of them work best in the final third.
 
Robert1986 said:
lol yeah.

Cleverly, Anderson, Pogba are the future..... and Rooney?

Not the greatest but could do. Pogba (if he stays) will be a good player in a few years and a first time player.
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Why?

Why does anyone think it's a good idea ffs?

Pogba, Morrison & Tunnicliffe I imagine could make it into the first team. Depending on quite a few things.

I could see us putting in a bid for Barkley or Rodwell.

But Rooney ffs.
 
Robert1986 said:
lol yeah.

Cleverly, Anderson, Pogba are the future..... and Rooney?

Not the greatest but could do. Pogba (if he stays) will be a good player in a few years and a first time player.
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You forget barca have been giving minutes to some young players cl and la liga. Cuenca looks ok and thiago is going to be awsome. Still leaves the cb issue though.
 
RM just won 0-3 against Sporting Gijon.

Di Maria, Ronaldo and Marcelo on the score sheet.

Barca up next against Levante.

RM currently have a 6 point lead in the table.
 
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