[Official TC Thread] Barcelona vs Celtic, Tuesday 13/09/16, 19.45. BTSport3

Rest of the top tier looks deserted, locals can't have been that interested. Wonder what the official attendance was, although that's misleading because a lot of tickets in Spain get sold but people don't turn up to every game.

 

Said 70 thousand..

 

Somecunt get the caley thistle thread up now eh? :smiley-laughing002:

 

Not too bad I guess. Weird that they want to expand beyond 99k though, the cost would surely outweigh the benefit, would take years to turn a profit.

 

Championsleague is bonus...league and cup is what to ficuse on. After the 5:1 on Saturday we must not criticize them too harsh. I knew after seeing Barca lost, that they would tear us a new one. Between 5 and 8 goals. Barca away..doesnt matter.

 

I feel sorry for the people who paid hundreds of pounds to go and watch that *. Hope the pubs and nice weather were worth it.

 

if that had been sevco it would literally have been a cricket score. scottish football is light years behind european teams i'm afraid. dont know about de vries though.HH

 

I mostly just lurk around here but I have some specific things I want to * about that I can't anywhere else:

Goal #1: I don't usually blame the keeper but from the last replay angle you can tell Messi is going to shoot for a good few seconds. And it won't be the last time this game De Vries should have cut off the angle better. It's hard not to think Gordon saves that.

Goal #2: What can you say except you need a bit more energy. Understandable after the penalty let down.

Goal #3: I will never get modern keepers and their positioning on freekicks + walls. 25 yards out - if de Vries is at the park after training, just himself and Neymar, and says "Go on, have a go from 25 yards out" - where does he stand? I have to believe any goalkeeper is saving 90% of those if it's just the two of them and he positions himself in the middle of the goal. But all of a sudden you put a wall in and the keeper feels like they need to shift toward one post or the other. Again not good enough from de Vries. You just knew it would happen as soon as you saw them lining up to take it.

Goal #4: Absolutely * lazy. From the wingers/wing-backs letting Neymar get the cross off, to the midfielders who should be tracking back with Iniesta, this goal is * pathetic. The only one that really really makes me angry.

Goal #5: I put this on the manager. Playing a high line against Barcelona is already a bad idea imo, but with 5 at the back, you'll never keep that line in order. Credit to Barcelona, an absolutely textbook way to beat a high line.

Goal #6: * is de Vries doing? A lightly chipped ball to the outside of the six yard box and our goalkeeper lets Suarez leisurely bring the ball down off his chest and volley it in. Rooted to the line, not good enough, get Gordon back in. Suarez should have been absolutely clobbered here.

Goal #7: Tired, lazy, defeated. And credit to Barcelona. Great movement against a defeated side.

I'm off to watch highlights of us clobbering the newly promoted team in the league. I'm tired of thinking about our failure today in a competition that we "belong" in.

 

I agreed with you till that last line. Are you saying we don't belong in the Champions League? Champions of Scotland, advanced through 3 rounds of qualification. Just because we get destroyed by the best team in the world doesn't make us unfit for the competition.

 

Just saying that I've seen that line a lot lately and it feels entitled. Performance wasn't Champions League quality on the day, and I don't like the "happy to be here" mentality.

 

Outclassed last night, there front 3 are deadly!

We kept the ball well in the few times we had it, very frustrating that everytime when went to break we were fouled.

 

* it.........next

 

Not disagreeing with you there. For me, I think we always "belong" but have never deserved being in it these past couple seasons. Not to sound entitled, I just think a club with a history like ours belongs to be playing alongside those of similar stature. Performance wasn't of Champions League quality but I think a CL quality performance would've still seen us lose 4. I'm still optimistic we can make noise in this group if we play to our full capabilities at both ends of the ball. The home games will make or break us.

 

I just hope we can compete with Monchengladbach, because City have the capability to walk through us too.

 

Hope we stick to playing Barca in friendlies after this season, no more competitive matches please, was like watching a boxer getting punched for 12 rounds solid offering no reply. Depressing hope it doesn't affect the players for Sunday.

 

You need players when they go in to win the ball to stay on their man. What we kept doing is go in mark someone, press it and then drop off the player i.e. Messi - all game.

You need very specialized man markers in this game, certainly you need to be close enough to put a fair tackle on him.

We show Barcelona way too much respect.

The way to get at Barcelona is to go and press their defenders and if it goes to Messi and you go press when he's got the ball, after he passes it he stays where he is, the marker disappears and Messi can pretty much stay where he is and get the ball back.

Then the big switch worked every time. So we're letting a high ball switch drop to feet and not go and put a challenge in the air on Neymar.

7-0, they showed no prisoners and it could have been worse.

Every single time there was a loose ball the picked it up.

What we need now is some rest. We need to look at the movement and work with guys who can match it. You maybe need to give someone a free role to try and stay touch tight and not give the time by constantly giving up the play in midfield to rotate back into shape while another has to come in and the ball is moved on very easily.

You need the defense to come out and you can't let the goalkeeper and the back four go through the game unmarked. So you invite them into your own half, don't man mark. They throw a decoy who runs offside just to confuse things, meanwhile they pass right through the confusion.

Lack of height at right back was highlighted every time they switched the ball out and nobody had the bottle to go and help Dembele.

I'm sure the Sevco game was the most important out the two. The treble is where it's at this season. Europe is gonna be 100% about the home form, which we kind of already figured out.

Question is whether we can pass them to death, like they just did to us. We had problems all night in the middle third when we worked the ball out where were Roberts and Sinclair. Sinclair you want up there with Dembele the whole game.

If you're gonna play long hopeful balls, then you need someone to get on the second ball. We didn't have one. Even if it's just someone going up there for a few minutes and dropping back. We were second to everything and when we got the penalty, we put their keeper on a yellow card. We never managed to get another one-on-one with him because we were too feart to stay on the man you're supposed to be marking.

We made it way too easy for them.

 

I think people know that's the risk when you go to the House Camp :smiley-laughing002:

 

Zonal marking , you can't do it against team like Barca.

 

Completely agree. I wasn't expecting anything from this match. I just keep telling myself 'we just dropped three pints, which I knew we would'. I can't look at the scoreline.

 

Keepers no better than Gordon and Gamboa was a big mistake