There is a way to stop them, and it's been done before. In fact your lot did it for the first 15 minutes. They aren't the sort of team you can hit on the counter, you've got to take it to them. Their back line is particularly poor, but they never get tested enough so they get away with it. Arsenal had about 3 shots on goal at the emirates and scored 2. Both should've been saved, but that's just a testament to how poor Valdes actually is. Obviously if you've got the quality you might get away with a defensive game plan (inter last year) but otherwise you've just got to outwork them.
The tabloids manipulate what he says so much. I have never heard him say that, only that he thinks he is capable of becoming one of the best strikers in the world. Although he treads the line between being extremely confident and arrogant I would say he is more of the former than the later. Besides he is a better player than he is given credit for. Suarez I think Valdez is actually a very good keeper. He could do nothing about the Arshavin shot and nobody expected RvP to shoot from the position that he was in. I prefer to put it down to an amazing shot than a goalkeeping error
I can't stand bendtner haha. I am sure every team has at least one player that everyone does not rate/like/etc. From Arsenal, Bendtner is mine. btw what happened to chamakh? I thought he started well then just fell off completely??
I'd honestly rather have us lose 10-0 to Barca than resort to kicking them around the park like the Dutch, and then still lose in the end. Not to mention that had Webb been a European ref he would probably have sent at least three Dutch players off by half time. The Inter tactics last year were more effective than ours, but then they had a better midfield with which to work with. And they also had a Barca side tired from a 14 hour coach journey who weren't playing their best. Messi in particular was practically invisible. Even when Inter weren't marking him tightly he couldn't seem to get it together in that game. And of course Barca had no Iniesta, so were only really at 2/3 of their full strength. Your tactics were very reliant on that Busquets own goal tho'. Had he not scored that, you wouldn't have had a single goal to your name. I'm not criticising your tactics, but any tactics you use against Barca are reliant on them making errors or not playing all that well. When they don't make any errors, and all their top players play as well as they did on Sat, there's nothing tactics will do for you.
Just like in 2009, it worked for the first few minutes. But Barca's central three have too much intelligence for it to work for a full game - they adapted pretty soon and got used to laying the ball off first time before we could close them down. After that, even if we got to the ball and made a challenge, Xavi and Iniesta were just pulling the loose ball out of the sky and passing it off. Also, you're saying exactly the opposite to BBF (either in this thread or another). He claimed that you can't beat Barca by pressing them high, you have to stay tight and contained. Which just shows that there is no one tactic to beat them - when they are on top form they can handle anything you try.
It didnt work they scored they were denied a good goal and denied a stick on penalty and missed at least 3 good chances to put you away, being fortunate is not getting it right
Swarbs, you like me watched the game. The space between carrick and giggs and the space between rooney and hernandez was miles, what did Fergie expect to hanppen, in the first ten minutes unitedwere compact and plaing higher, this required a serious amount of stamina but it works but I will say Arsenal of the their last 5 games would have gotten a far worse hiding tan united by Barca of that I have no doubt. There must be no way though the middle via serious pressing battling and congestion, you WILL pick up cards and it was a testament to uniteds subdued activity that they were no cards meaning no battling and tackling , make em battle for every simgle pass, but your players must posess good anticipation, carrick has none and we know the shortcommings of the others, forcing them to cross is not their forte and leaves you with a beter chance with balls coming in wide rather than running right at your CB, you have to be tight leave no space (Very hard work all game to do) and hope it works, what can you do when a team pass like that were if you block out a passing lane they tap it into space for one of the others to run on to it as they know it is coming. If there is no space to run into, and we have sen this done to them where they can receive a ball but can not run at people, occupy the space prevent the runs but it means sacrificing attacking stance altogether and united were caught between the two and when that happens well, chaos theory As for the dutch in the WC, if you look at the job the non kickers did, they were fantastic, the work rate astounding and it was all tarnished by 3 Dutch players that webb could have got a hold of early on and said simply, any bollox and yer off, so be warned?!? what a poor fking ref Barca may be predictable in that they will give the ball to intelligent skillful creative players and what they will do you cannot predict, so being predictable will not let you predict what messi will do at any given time, or where he will be as it all depends on the opponents position and the location of the ball and teammates, all variables you would need to know to make Barca predictable Oh and before I forget, spain are barca without messi, and I wasn't assuming messi had played in that game and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD it is xavi that makes barca tick, even with Messi they would lose more without Xavi, he is the front to back conduit side to side conduit, ball winner, creator and centre of gravity, stop him and you stop the ball flowing through the team, styfle the nucleus of their attacks by swamping him in your half, what would happen if messi couldn't get the ball under his spell in the first place,. There is one way to stop em, 11 fat newcastle supporter goalies
I reckon Livwerpool would have beaten Barcelona with a team like this. Reina. Kelly. Carragher. Agger. Johnson. Lucas Spearing. Mereiles. Gerrard. Suarez Carroll. Now when Lucas and Spearing squeeze the play,they are tighter than a nuns fanny.The way to hurt Barcelona is to force corners as their centre halves are not the biggest,and we all know that Andy Carroll is lethal from set-pieces.Liverpools full-backs would have squeezed tight leaving no space for Xavi and Iniesta to get into.Evra and Rafael on more than one occasion were both caught dawdling in possesion.This exposed Uniteds centre halves.Luis Suarez is also one of the best at coming deep,winning possesion and keeping the ball moving.If he could drop a ball in,Gerrard would have pounced and let fly a pile-driver. This system is similar to the one United adopted against Barca in the semi in 2008 with Hargreaves,Scholes and Anderson.Thats why they knocked them out.They were tight,they were compact and they didn't have two traffic cones in the middle of their midfield.
KPR A 433 formation with Gerrard on the wings? You would be destroyed by Barcelona's full backs given how little discipline he has. How would you get corners when you have so little possession? Besides I think Spearing may be quite a way out of his depth when he is up against Messi.
Did I say Gerrard would be on the wing,The set up would be 4-3-3 going forward,but a tight 4-5-1 whilst defending.Lucas and Spearing unlike Carrick and Giggs are battlers and although not the most talented will battle,scrap and annoy.They get in your face.Luis Suarez as I said will drop off and win posession.He's got Rooney's energy plus he has something Rooney doesn't and thats pure skill.If you press Barcelona up the pitch and deny them both possesion and space,they can be beaten,and Lucas and Spearing are two of the best at coming in and snapping at heels.
Ah ok so Meireles will play on the right then. I thought you meant Gerrard would play as part of the front 3 because of the way you set out the team. Even so Madrid played that tactic with far superior defensive players Khedira>Lucas, Pepe>>>>>>>>Spearing) and they still lost. I'm not convinced that Suarez will do as well as you say he would, Busquets is generally very good at nullifying players with good movement.
Ironically I think Spearing would be brilliant against Messi, but would struggle against Iniesta and Xavi. Spearing's attributes lie in chasing down opponents in midfield and trying to get it back up field. We've all seen that very long run he made earlier in the season to take the ball of the opponent (can't remember the game) and I think he would badger Messi so much that Messi would end up turning round in circles. Iniesta and Xavi are a football perfect match though in the way they play, since they've been playing together for a long time I think they'd beat a pairing of Lucas and Gerrard. Alonso, Mascherano and Gerrard though? Quite a different game. Just a shame we had to lose them both.
Personally I think teams that have gone against Barcelona have set up all wrong. They've been compact because they're scared of Barca's attack force, whereas they should be opening up space. When defending, Barca tend to crowd, they rely on numbers getting back in the box and stopping attack. The wider and more spread out your attackers = The more chance you've got of opening up their defence. That is how Man Utd got their first goal, they opened up both wings and Rooney shot through the middle. If anyone is going to have any chance of beating Barcelona in any future finals, they need to get tactics right first and foremost. Players can only do so much, the rest is down to the manager. A lot of managers also settle on the "Quality rather than Substance," so they will opt to play (I will take Liverpool as an example because it's what I know) Gerrard in a DM role, instead of Spearing. They will then play Meireles in a CAM role instead of Gerrard. They will do this so they can accommodate the "quality" players into the team, whereas in fact they should be putting Gerrard in CAM because that's where he plays best and Spearing in DM because he's better than Meireles there. Far too many managers feel the need to play the more reputable players because they feel they have to.
Ze Liverbird If you go toe to toe with Barca and put their defence under pressure then you will get hurt. We tried it in the 1st ten minutes of our match against them but we couldn't keep it up because they were destroying us. I don't think there is any option but to be compact unless you want to get raped. I also don't think that Spearing would be able to contain Messi, he has the tenacity, but not the skill in my opinion.
