Matchday 33: Levante - Barcelona | Sat Apr 14 | CET 22:00/ET 16:00

_LMG_10_ wrote:

paxtonpale wrote:Not a convincing game but still a win that keeps us contention for the league race which is important. 63 goals now for Messi. Unbelievable from an unbelievable guy. Not too impressed by Thaigos and Fabregas performances this year. Oh well, I guess there is alsways next season...

Aren't you jumping to conclusions? The most important matches of the season are still to come.
Regarding Thiago, he has had his moments this season. Fabregas not so much, though he's scored some deciding goals.
I think both players are played out of position by Guardiola - that's why they are underachieving a little.
Remember, still 3 CL matches to go, if we reach the final. Add onto that 5 league games and 1 Copa final. That's 9 games we have left. 9 important games.

I guess I am a bit. With the more important games to come, Im sure Pep won't play Thiago too many times. Fabregas will though. Im just saying that Pep may find the full potential of these players next season, not neccessary this season even though we do have some importnant games

alexjanosik wrote:Messi was on a walkabout.Atrocious attitude and reminded me of ronnie's last days.But the guy is so good and so lethal that even when he plays at 10%( I dont think he was even playing at 10%),still ends up scoring 2 goals.Still atrocious attitude.

Same thing happened against Sociedad and Getafe and guess what happened in those matches? Barcelona dropped 5 points. Don't want to put all the blame on him, but he was very poor in those matches but more importantly he walked about the whole 90 minutes. Why does Messi have to play every match?

It was a soft penalty, but it was fair, especially if we think about how many 100% penalties we were denied this season... probabilistically we had to get at least one important soft penalty during this season in la liga.

Agree mostly with Alex.

Though I felt while Alexis and Pedro didnt have the greatest games, I think they had a relience on Messi and he was too busy doing nothing.

The first 15 minutes we had 7 shots, we were doing very well at that point. Then they scored and we played poor. Messi up untill maybe 65 didnt do anything. Not only did he not play well, he was ininvolved and letting the game bypass him. I was very annoyed considering the time in the season and hat every game can mean now.

Of course, just like only he can, he goes and makes something out of nothing playing a 1-2 and scoring. And I noticed he changed his penalty technique, he doesnt wait and age for the goalie to move. Thre is only a slight pause and he choose his direction much earlier.

Where I disagree slightly with Alex is Cuenca. He did wel no doubt, but he was VERY obvious and going on the outside every time and after 1 or 2 it stopped working. Valda put him out of bounds before the pen and then the pen wasnt really one. He did decent, but he is very predictable at this point.

In defence of Cuenca his only choice was to go outside. There was no one on his left to help him out with two, sometimes three defenders surrounding him. The problem in my opinion was lack of those triangles that Barcelona often create and I blame Fábregas and Thiago for their lack of involvement when attacking. The wingers, both Cuenca and Pedro were often isolated lose to the touchline with no midfielders in their proximity to do one-two. Up until the penalty incident.

The Franchise wrote:Agree mostly with Alex.

Though I felt while Alexis and Pedro didnt have the greatest games, I think they had a relience on Messi and he was too busy doing nothing.

The first 15 minutes we had 7 shots, we were doing very well at that point. Then they scored and we played poor. Messi up untill maybe 65 didnt do anything. Not only did he not play well, he was ininvolved and letting the game bypass him. I was very annoyed considering the time in the season and hat every game can mean now.

Of course, just like only he can, he goes and makes something out of nothing playing a 1-2 and scoring. And I noticed he changed his penalty technique, he doesnt wait and age for the goalie to move. Thre is only a slight pause and he choose his direction much earlier.

Where I disagree slightly with Alex is Cuenca. He did wel no doubt, but he was VERY obvious and going on the outside every time and after 1 or 2 it stopped working. Valda put him out of bounds before the pen and then the pen wasnt really one. He did decent, but he is very predictable at this point.

On the first part,Alexis and Pedro were so wide and Levante cut off Messi's passing options so well that he wanst able to invovle them(partly also because he was on a walkabout).Which is why I felt it would have been better to play 4-3-3 with overlapping fullbacks and the forwards coming in to provide Messi with more passing and combining options.As it was Messi just had Fabregas.
Also on that point its worrying when you mention
'Though I felt while Alexis and Pedro didnt have the greatest games, I think they had a relience on Messi and he was too busy doing nothing.'
It just shows our extreme over reliance on Messi.Why should we always rely on Messi in the final third?He is human and will have games like yesterday.Thats when the likes of Alexis and Pedro have to step up and regrettably neither did.Alexis got the ball plenty of times and did nothing with it.neither did Pedro.

On Cuenca correct me if I am wrong,but didnt he lay off the pass initially to Mesi by coming inside(not his customary going outside).I agree that he is a bit predictable at this point but atleast when he came on he treied to take on the defender and do something instead of Alexis who just kept checking back when he had the ball.
The penalty was soft but again it came about because he was willing to take on the defender.
He is a predictable but he can work on that.He has the technique and the tricks to be a good forward for us.
Just want our other forwards to try something instead of always relying on Messi's brilliance.Pedro needs to step up and theres only so much Alexis can hide under the adapting excuse.

alexjanosik wrote:

The Franchise wrote:Agree mostly with Alex.

Though I felt while Alexis and Pedro didnt have the greatest games, I think they had a relience on Messi and he was too busy doing nothing.

The first 15 minutes we had 7 shots, we were doing very well at that point. Then they scored and we played poor. Messi up untill maybe 65 didnt do anything. Not only did he not play well, he was ininvolved and letting the game bypass him. I was very annoyed considering the time in the season and hat every game can mean now.

Of course, just like only he can, he goes and makes something out of nothing playing a 1-2 and scoring. And I noticed he changed his penalty technique, he doesnt wait and age for the goalie to move. Thre is only a slight pause and he choose his direction much earlier.

Where I disagree slightly with Alex is Cuenca. He did wel no doubt, but he was VERY obvious and going on the outside every time and after 1 or 2 it stopped working. Valda put him out of bounds before the pen and then the pen wasnt really one. He did decent, but he is very predictable at this point.

On the first part,Alexis and Pedro were so wide and Levante cut off Messi's passing options so well that he wanst able to invovle them(partly also because he was on a walkabout).Which is why I felt it would have been better to play 4-3-3 with overlapping fullbacks and the forwards coming in to provide Messi with more passing and combining options.As it was Messi just had Fabregas.
Also on that point its worrying when you mention
'Though I felt while Alexis and Pedro didnt have the greatest games, I think they had a relience on Messi and he was too busy doing nothing.'
It just shows our extreme over reliance on Messi.Why should we always rely on Messi in the final third?He is human and will have games like yesterday.Thats when the likes of Alexis and Pedro have to step up and regrettably neither did.Alexis got the ball plenty of times and did nothing with it.neither did Pedro.

On Cuenca correct me if I am wrong,but didnt he lay off the pass initially to Mesi by coming inside(not his customary going outside).I agree that he is a bit predictable at this point but atleast when he came on he treied to take on the defender and do something instead of Alexis who just kept checking back when he had the ball.
The penalty was soft but again it came about because he was willing to take on the defender.
He is a predictable but he can work on that.He has the technique and the tricks to be a good forward for us.
Just want our other forwards to try something instead of always relying on Messi's brilliance.Pedro needs to step up and theres only so much Alexis can hide under the adapting excuse.

Actually yes I agree with that, those passing angles were not there. And yes, I agree there is and has been a over relience on Messi. I felt Alexis last week showed the abiity to do things by himself (his first goal), he didnt follow that up to today. Though to be fair, Levante defended i much greater numbers and with more ability than last week.

Cuenca in the goal for Messi? I thought that was Alexis, I could be wrong. Anyway, I agree he drove at the defenders and that was a good thing, someone needed to do it and Alexis nor Pedro seemed to want to. Alexis went past his man 1 v 1 on his first attempt, so indeed I was dissapointed he didnt continue that. Which was dissapointing. I still agree he was motm, but his predictability did stand out for me,

I'm sick of some of you, so eager to yield to Evil Madrid media and forum users and agree with them that Cuenca's penalty wasn't a penalty and even complain that we were awarded this penalty!

My gosh!

Cuenca has the edge in the play and is pushed with TWO hands. He goes to the ground because he is featherlight, but it's a clear penalty. Not even a soft one.

The Busquets penalty it's another example of how the hands rule is completely messed up and they should clarify it for once and all.

It makes no sense that:

- no deliberate hands + benefit for the defender = penalty (Alves some weeks ago).

but also:
- deliberate hands + no benefit for the defender = penalty (Busquets case).

Busquets move his hands deliberately to his chest, ffs. The ball would have impacted him anyway,

@ Alex and Dani: Yeah it was Alexis who played the one-two with Messi, not Cuenca.

@ Free: I don't think its people giving in to the Madrid media bro. We all just have different views which give us a gut instinct to what is a penalty or not. I agree we definitely deserved to win this game. If we got the calls against us for both it would have been a robbery. I've seen both given sometimes, and both not given other times.

My initial reactions:

Pen 1: Not a penalty.
Pen 2: Went down easily... maybe a penalty? Of course, on replay, you've pointed out it looks like a blatant foul. But this was my reaction at the time, I wasn't sure.

Live, I also thought Cuenca's penalty looked like an offensive foul. But that doesn't matter, cause I don't have the linesman point of view, who was much closer than I was on TV.

Also, people come here to bash their own team or the team they sympathize with after seeing numerous replays, in which you can see precisely what happened. Cuenca's was a very clear penalty. No question and argument possible about it.

Busquet's one, can be a penalty or not, depending on the refs interpretations on the handballs law that is completely messed up and given to any subjective interpretation nowadays.

And btw, if Busquets handball was a penalty, we should have been awarded another penalty for a handball from a Levante player that it was exactly the same, he moved his arm closer to his chest when blocking a cross from Messi, and hit his hand.

Shameful referee criterium.

There were actually two handballs from Levante players in the box, one a Pedro cross hit a Levante player in the arm and then the one free is speaking of.

Valdés, Pinto, Oier, Alves, Piqué, Cesc, Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Alexis, Messi, Thiago, Mascherano, Keita, Busquets, Pedro, Adriano, Afellay, Cuenca, Bartra, Montoya y Tello.

Busquets "penalty" is not one in a million years. Ever.

And everyone should know that.

@ Free- It is a penalty, but the reason most people think it's soft is that we see much more get unpunished all the time. It's the same reason people don't exactly think that Busquets should have had a penalty in the Milan game- because more has been done and gone unpunished.

Which quite frankly, is the fault of the referees of those games and now penalties like Cuenca's look soft.