I was extremely pissed and hurt after the Girona game. It was such a big opportunity missed and such a huge moment on the title race. And while the wound was still raw for the fans we were playing our last group stage game against Royal Antwerp. I just wasn't feeling it yesterday to write about the game, I was too annoyed with Barca after that Girona game.
In the greater scheme of things, yesterday's game was completely pointless and had no impact - we had already qualified for the Round of 16 as group leaders. Hence it was actually the right decision to rest first team players and give the fringe bench players a go at the top level and some champions league experience. And you are still expected to win against Royal Antwerp with your B or C team or Academy team.
But my God we were bad!
It was royal antwerp for fuck's sake, no offence! Antwerp has been unarguably the worst team of this season's group stage. They had zero points after 5 rounds, they had conceded the most number goals after the first round. So if you are Barcelona you are expected to to go to antwerp and fucking win no matter you are playing your bench or whatever.
Jhonny Sins "cums" early to the party!
Not something you can accuse Jhonny Sins of really! But this our very own catalan Jhonny Sins - Oriol fucking Romeu! My god what the hell happened to this guy! He was supposed to be the solid rock for us at DM but he has just been our Harry Maguire and Andre Onana blended into one! The commentators kept blaming Inaki Pena for the first goal, but it was really Oriol Romeu who had the blunder. He was dispossessed too easily (like he was for the rest of the game) and we were 1 goal down in less than 2 minutes.
By the way, for the second goal we conceded was also entirely on Jhonny sins - getting dispossessed too easily outside the box! Becoming an all too familiar scene!
Who is to blame?
I am not on of those fans who is calling for Xavi to be sacked. although I don't know how long I can keep defending Xavi. I love xavi and his playing style and I am all for giving him time but for how long?
I mean yeas, Barcelona players missing absolute sitters in the game vs Girona - Xavi can't really step on to the pitch and score those goals right? In fact, this season of all the teams in La Liga, Barca have missed the most big chances. If your strikers are not scoring the goals what can the coach really do.
But there's the other side to the coin as well. WHY are these strikers with so much talent being so bad all of a sudden? WHY has Lewandowski forgotten how to score? WHY hasn't Xavi given him the talking down and a smack in the head which Lewa totally deserves? WHY hasn't Xavi dropped him straight to the bench and tell him he has to fight for his place and not make him an auto starter despite being worse than Lukaku?
These are all down to Xavi. He, I think has not managed the players well at all. He hasn't been as strict as he needs to be, there's no other explanation.
Look at Jhonny sins, he was playing at a very high level at Girona. But under Xavi he has undergone a continuous decline over the last months.
Look at Eric Garcia, he was playing really low level football under Xavi and he moves to Girona and my goodness look at what an invincible player he looks like.
Take the examples of the young kids - Lamine Yamal, Fermin Lopez - when they came straight out of the academy from under the guidance of the academy coaches, notice how awesome and exciting they were. Fast forward to a few months under xavi's coaching and both of them seem lost, less sharp, less threatening.
I have been a big fan of that Golden Barca La Masia generation and maybe that's why I am biased towards Xavi. But looking at this logically, and even as I am writing down my thoughts in a logical - I can start to see the problem with Xavi.
I am afraid his time at the club is over.
Hi, I see, this has educated me. I know of the question on Lewandoski under Xavi, but I didn't know there were other players too.
Well as a neutral I wait and see what's next. The larger picture is that La Liga is on the decline, I have been saying this since early last season. It's on Sports talk now even, you can check it out.
Regarding la liga's decline, I both agree and disagree. Yes, watching games in La liga isn't as entertaining as before...the refereeing is absolutely horrendous.
But how many teams from other top european leagues right now except Manchester City (and maybe Arsenal) can actually confidently take on any of the top 5-6 La liga teams and beat them comfortably. So maybe the football isn’t as eye soothing as before, but it sure is effective.
German and Italian leagues will do just that bro.[with reference to your second paragraph]
Wait, have you seen Inter Milan this season? Even City will be wary of them, if we must tell ourselves the truth.
How many teams in Germany and Italy qualified for the next round of the CL? Even AC Milan that dropped out, dropped into the Europa. about should tell us something about league strength.
You should see that blog. Whichever way you look at it, the Spanish league is on the decline. You can literally see that there's more competition in those leagues I mentioned above.
Cheers
No no, I agree La Liga has declined. What I am trying to say is, it is not like because of the decline any of the top teams from other european leagues like Inter Milan or Bayern Munich etc will be confidently taking on the la liga teams or beating them easily.
Regarding competition in the leagues, I agree there. Competition in La liga has always been much less than that of the premier league. But you can't say it is less than the Bundesliga where Bayern won the league for 11 years in a row. Or in Serie A where Juventus won 9 years in a row. Bundesliga this season is different so far - but I think eventually Bayern will win it, again.
I have seen the stats in your post and I see your point, but objectively speaking every single one of these big teams would rather not face any of the spanish sides for as long as possible in the tournament.
All 4 la liga teams proceeded as group champions.
Whereas from the most competitive league in the world, only 2 teams proceeded to the next round. Newcastle had a tough group sure, but Man united?
The 3 Italian teams that went through were all group runner ups and who were the group champions in their groups? A spanish team, in all 3 of their groups.
So to sum it up, despite declining La Liga, the rest of the european leagues have also declined and no one except Man City can actually take on any team easily.
Yeah I know you have no qualms with the La Liga decline, but your first paragraph negates your knowledge of the La Liga decline you agree with.
I talked of how difficult it would be for City to tackle this season's Inter and you are talking about other La Liga teams who are not half as good as City. I don't think you are being sincere here.
You said you have seen the stats in my blog. Those La liga teams you said can't be easily beaten by a Liverpool for example, were in the Europa League and they have not stopped the La Liga ranking from plunging southward. Whereas an English team like Brighton(not a top team you are referring to) is doing wonders. Someone will say Brighton beat Marseille yesterday because Marseille already knew they had qualified before the game ended. Ok I would recall that Inter made plenty of changes in their penultimate match to rest players(as they were leading their CL group and Serie is so tough) and it ended in a 3–3 draw– the ultimate reason they finished 2nd, but on SAME POINTS with Sociedad.
Not just Brighton, West Ham,Liverpool. Where are the Spanish teams sir? Real Betis were beaten AT HOME by Rangers. Amazing! Rangers topped that group and Real Betis finished 3rd, so they are out. Ok Villareal is through, topping their group. But 3 English clubs are through, ALL TOPPING THEIR GROUPS.
If you read my blog well, you will notice that it says, the Spanish league has no single representative in the Conference league. That's poor.
So we can not stand here and talk only of the CL, when the EL and the ECL are also bonafide UEFA competitions(I said this in my blog, you implied you read). Infact a victory in the CL gives a team exactly same points as a victory in the ECL in the coefficient calculation.
It's unjust, to consider only the CL to get the strength of a league, UEFA doesn't even do that. The rankings are there in my blog, the Spanish league is correctly sat at 4th, despite what they have done in the CL(and they can't go higher).
There are teams that will beat La Liga teams easily, not just City.
Yeah you are correct in that. I did only take the champions league into consideration as I do not really follow the europa league or the conference league. So these are just my points of view regarding the games I enjoy watching. Yes, sure the spanish teams might be doing shit in the europa league, but I am not really talking about that as I don't even watch the europa league until the semi finals. So I'd say your point is correct.
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