Barcelona digs its own grave : Leganes vs F C Barcelona - La Liga Match Reveiw

 F C Barcelona digs its own grave

Leganes vs F C Barcelona - La Liga Match Reveiw - Sep 26, 2018

Leganes  one of the teams struggling at the bottom of the league table hosted FC Barcelona in the midweek  La Liga clash.

In the first half Barcelona were all over Leganes as they passed and attacked with ease. Leganes were pinned back in their own half, defending hard. The closely marked Messi was surrounded by about 5 players and that meant Coutinho and Munir had all the space in the world. As a result Coutinho scored to put Barca on the front foot. They also missed a number of good opportunities to extend that lead.

Leganes became extremely rough and players like Messi, Coutinho, Munir, Rakitic, Roberto and Busquets  took heavy knocks. Then for some inexplicable reason the Barca’s  defenders – Pique, Vermaelen and Umtiti along with Busquets (his ability to go from remarkable to appalling is what works against him when it comes to comparing him with the likes of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta) decided to make things tough for their team mates. They went about spraying the ball all over the field without any aim. They gave away the ball in dangerous areas and failed to clear the balls in time. As usual Dembele added to the confusion. 

Leganes scored from two such mistakes and made Barcelona suffer. Soon it was total mayhem as Leganes defended with all their might. Barca was in a mood to fightback as they continued to be wayward. The late introduction of Alba and Suarez had some positive impact. But the weakness of not being able to score from set pieces worked against them.

It was FC Barcelona’s disastrous defending that let them down. The match was reminiscent of their pathetic display against Roma in the UCL last year. Except for that one game, last season, Barca’s solid defense was their biggest strength. The team, even when they faltered, never let it affect them and fought back to win or salvage draws. This year, they don’t seem to have the energy to fight back.

While Pique made up for his mistakes in the last game against Girona, the warning signals were out there. Valverde needs to play the likes of Lenglet, Malcom, Arthur and some of the promising youngsters of the B team in the La Liga games so that there are always more options in defense.

This shambolic defeat has not affected the league standings much because luckily for Barcelona, Sevilla beat Real Madrid later and everything remains the same as of now. But I truly wished it was otherwise so that there would be some fire in their belly to do better in every game, rather than take things for granted.

It sounded a warning signal about the brittleness of the Barca defense.  La Liga this year is very unpredictable as most small teams looks strong and capable of upsetting the biggies. Barcelona has to buckle up and start looking at creating a winning combination with different options. It’s time to rotate and rest the aging players like Pique, Busquets, Messi and Suarez on a regular basis so that their influence can be maximized.

High time for Valverdu to look at options available to him including La Masia’s promising youngsters.