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Not trying to take the moral high ground (excuse the pun) or anything here but as an authorized ref I'll tell you that the Alves tackle is a straight red card. Touching the ball first or going in without intention to hurt is not interesting in this situation. Endangering the health of a fellow professional in such a clumsy fashion sanctions a red card punishment. I didn't zee it on TV as I was working so I can't judge the position and view of the ref solely from the gif Tomaz posted.. then again the ref screwed us on some of those penalty calls, handed out some generous yellows. Alves dive wasn't a dive as the replay shows as well as the second of Pique where Tchite is the one holding Gerard.

This is also just another situation that dispels the myth of the 'soft la liga' where refs ignore the hard and clumsy tackles and instead hands out cards in silly situations, sometimes to compensate and other times to stop players from questioning their decisions.. Either way, its good of Alves to phone Moral after the game and apologize for it. Hope he can keep washing away that bad rep he got while at Del Nidos Nest.
 
Well that was a dour match. I expected worse based on some of the comments I read before viewing the match. Still it was one to forget. I feel as though the team was really lacking in workrate, movement and passion. They were just flat out there. The odd thing is that I never felt we were that threatened. I mean sure there was the play on the penalty, but apart from that I didn't think they were too threatening. They did scrap though as there was this back and forth between us (though it never got too heated I felt) and I thought they defended really well and with a sense of urgency in the first half.

I do think there are some things we can take away from this match though. First, we yet again lacked a second creative force in midfield. Xavi was there and did well (despite the comments I've read here). The problem is that for about an hour he didn't have an appropriate partner in midfield. I am a Busquets fan like everybody else, but he really should be in the DM spot and not the CM spot. He's simply too slow and not nearly decisive enough on the ball. He holds the ball really well, he draws fouls and we know he can pass. Problem is he just slows play down. I agree with CarlosMiguel in that he was a problem, though I disagree in the reasoning for that. I think he was a problem because he simply looked for the easy pass and isn't fast enough in his dribbling to break down a defense like that. It wasn't that he couldn't get past his guy or that he shouldn't try and dribble. We needed someone capable of beating their man in the dribble there for a couple of reasons. It's that once he's past his guy he's not fast enough to get anywhere and when he does he get somewhere he makes a poor decision. I wanna say it happened twice and I know it for sure happened once, but he dribbled the ball to the edge of their area on this play. Then when he got there he just sat on the ball when he could have shot or played somebody in. His support was a bit slow in arriving, but he could have done much better in that position. Pep should have swapped him with Yaya to start the match or simply started Iniesta in his place (the latter being what I would have preferred). Funny thing is he was the first person subbed off, Iniesta took his spot and the game changed. From that point they were less dangerous and we were more dangerous than before. This actually is the direct reason for the other takeaways from this match. Busquets' play in midfield necessitated that Iniesta move to the center of midfield for periods (and this is before Busquets was subbed off) leaving Dani all alone on the right flank. Sure Dani had a poor match by his standards, but he didn't have Messi to link up with and Xavi isn't going to racing up the wing when they're interchanging passes. Finally, getting back to me saying this previously, when Messi came on the match changed. It wasn't solely down to him though. Iniesta replacing Busquets was a major change. We got our shape back for starters and we actually looked like we knew what we were doing. It was like somebody turned on a lightswitch. Funny thing for me was I noticed it perfectly as Iniesta had the ball seconds before the first goal. Oh, and another thing, we had more players in the attack and we weren't giving up anything defensively (While Busquets did some dirty work with Zigic, we still had Yaya and Pique out there for that). In fact we were better in that regard because we were threatening them more. Also, Xavi was now free (because there was someone who could actually marshall the ball next to him) to make runs into the box and get forward more. Anyway, point is, and this isn't going back to last week's debate for the sake of last week's debate but rather because it was so obvious in this match, point is that we really need to be careful in these matches where the opposition's defense is packed in so that we're not being too defensive just because we're on the road. This doesn't mean that Iniesta-Xavi (Yaya-Xavi is an alternative) is always the answer, but it does mean getting the selection down right. Oh, and one final thing on this (sorry it's sorta rambling, it's late and I'm tired), we can still rest Messi in this instance. We could start with a Yaya-Xavi or Iniesta-Xavi midfield and still field Bojan or Hleb out wide and keep Messi on the bench. I seriously would like to have seen a different starting lineup in this one.

Valdes - N/A - Tough to say. I feel like he wasn't really tested and the goal wasn't his fault.

Dani - 5 - While I thought he was poor, I think he's getting a bit too much flack here. He looked slow and caught out a bit a couple of times on defense and woe was his freekick. However he did get forward some on the right and didn't have a lot of support in terms of link up play. I think the match was getting under his skin a bit though and that's not good. As for his challenge, IMO he was going for the ball first while second going for the player with his follow through.

Rafa - 4 - I thought he looked too slow out there and it ended up with that penalty. He didn't offer enough on the ball in terms of getting it up field.

Pique - 4 - I thought he was poor at the back as well and like Rafa was ineffective in moving the ball forward. He dwells on it too long and I think it's often times down to him waiting for a run when he's got an option in midfield. Stupid foul to get sent off on. 3rd minute of stoppage time and the guy has to go to the corner if he gets past him.

Abidal - 6 - I thought he was the best at the back. He didn't have as much to do, but I thought he was solid when called on. He offered up a nice cross on one play and I was wondering why the hell he doesn't do it more often.

Yaya - 4.5 - I was really disappointed in his performance. Far too pedestrian. One of those performances where he was wasted and it was partially his fault. A play that summed it all up for me was when he received the ball from the defense and he himself was in a pretty deep position. Instead of turning around and heading up field with the ball into the acres of space in front of him, he just one-touched it right back to the defender who just gave it to him.

Xavi - 7 - I think he was our brightest player out there at times along with Iniesta. For starters, he covered more ground than anybody else on our team. He was constantly moving and getting open and moving the ball. It would have been a huge disaster if we had a player of less calibre than him in that lineup. He had to play too deep not because he had to defend, but because we didn't have another threat in midfield. In the first sixty minutes he was as I said really moving and IMO really trying out there. The final thirty minutes he was working as hard, but he was actually able to get forward more. The result was him being involved in both goals. I thought he took such a good header on that first goal and this forum would have been in shock (as would I) if that had gone in and not rattled the bar. At the end he was even working in a defensive sense as he was forechecking on two different plays. Not a great performance, but it was a good performance.

Busquets - 5 - While I lay a lot of our problems in this match on him above, it's not down to his having a horrible performance. It's more down to him being where he shouldn't be due to the manager. I thought he held the ball well and as a result drew some fouls. I thought he worked hard in that covered a lot of ground and he had some dirty work to do with Zigic. He even could have done something on offense if he were more brave and had made better decisions.

Iniesta - 6 - I thought he was poor out wide. IMO he didn't link up with Dani as Messi does and despite the fact that he was needed more in the middle, he was creating too much havoc the majority of the times he went into the middle before the substitution. After the substitution he was better and IMO you could see his influence. He showed good vision and he was spotting runs and even being a bit of a danger himself.

Eto'o - 4 - For somebody who didn't see much of the ball I'm usually more lenient. However he really didn't offer up much at all until very late on. He needed to come back more for the ball early on or starting making some runs. As the match wore on he did that more and he did look to play Xavi in on the second goal.

Henry - 5 - I thought he was poor too. He made a stupid run early on when Xavi had the ball and was pretty deep. I don't know what sort of through ball he was expecting from that distance and in those conditions, but ffs. Then on another play he was galloping when we were on the ball instead of making an actual run. I have to give him credit for his pass to Xavi on our first goal. Two guys essentially on him and he played perfectly into Xavi's path.

Messi - 8 - IMO he didn't offer a ton. He didn't provide too much penetration. His first goal was simple enough too. However he did move to get into that position though which counts for something cause if it'd have been somebody else... As I said, he didn't provide too much penetration, but it was there a bit and the defense clearly had to respect him. What he did though was score another really good goal. He's got an "8" for that goal alone. He was hungry and went after the ball when he chested it. Then though, the defender caught him and he easily could have gone to ground and probably won a penalty (towards the end of the game while we're tied). Instead though he stayed on his feet and took his shot. Oh and what a shot too. He buried that and I think unless you watch him consistently you don't know how good a finisher in the box he really is.

Eidur - 7 - I thought he came on and worked really hard out there. Sure it was only for a short time, but he really tried to help hold the lead.

Caceres - N/A - What a knob. Pep was having a go at him for not being ready. Then he's got to wet the hair down nad put the headband on. What's worse though is that he looked to me to be somewhere else. I mean he didn't have this look on his face of concentration. I know this is extremely harsh, but the point is that he simply didn't inspire confidence in me.

Pep - I won't rate him, but I don't agree with everything. I think he got the lineup wrong for a start. Fortunately though he realized what was needed and made the necessary change. After that though I found his subs odd. You pull Eto'o instead of Henry when we're leading by only one goal? Then you pull Iniesta instead of Henry with the Caceres sub? Not dealbreakers by any means, but just odd choices.
 
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