1. The
reliance on Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi, yes, is the best player in the world but, as
we all know, football isn’t a one man sport Messi has scored over 60 goals so
far this season for Barcelona and that’s almost 50% percent of all the goals
they have scored this season, so that means if Messi has an off day Barcelona
are going to struggle.
No doubt Barcelona are the best team in Europe but depending
on one player more than others is going to catch up with you sooner or later
but Pep Guardiola continues to tailors all the Barca play to suit Messi.
Okay okay so it has worked for a while that’s why Barcelona
are the most feared team in world football but now opponents are beginning to
find them out by defending the central area where Messi is and giving Barcelona
space on the wings where they aren’t effective.
2. The
injury to David Villa
David Villa got injured last December playing for Barcelona
at the club world cup and his goals, presence, and runs have been sorely missed.
Even though David Villa in the months before his injury wasn’t
in the best form but Villa has been arguably the finest striker in world
football over the last five years. In his entire career, at Sporting Gijón,
Real Zaragoza and Valencia, he has never scored fewer than 15 league goals.
3. And
Pep Guardiola the Tinkerman
Josep Guardiola is a great coach, football philosophical thinker
and a football purist who is credited for reinventing the “Tiki-Taka” football
style. (tiki-taka is merely a form of possession football, wherein the best
defence lies in an attack that can move the ball up the field aggressively with
crisp, short passes through a number of channels, playing "keep away"
all the while.)
But one of Pep’s downfalls is that sometimes he over thinks,
this season he has employed the 3-5-2 formation reason being that he wants more
options in attack because opponents just defend when they play against his
Barcelona team. Barcelona for the past 3 seasons have been ripping apart teams
with the 4-5-1 formation now why would you want to change a winning formula?? If
it ain’t broke don’t fix it!!
Guardiola this season has been taking too many chances in
his line up and his risks have finally caught up with him. What sense was there
in not play Pedro in the past 3 games, I don’t know, what was the sense with
starting with the inexperience Tello in the most important game in the La Liga
season against Real Madrid?, I don’t know, What was the sense of taking off
Fabregas to put on Kieta last night?, I still don’t know!!
Is this an end of an era?
Barcelona are still, in my opinion, the best team in the world
and all they have to do is go back to the simple basics, invest in the defence,
and add variety in attack and they will be just fine.
