Barcelona successfully defended and extended its historic unbeaten streak to 32 games after a hard-fought, unexciting win against Las Palmas on Saturday afternoon. As the Blaugrana prepare for a crucial week of football, here's a few takeaways from what we saw at the Canary Islands.
1. No excuses: Barça played like garbage
Let's get this out of the way: it was not an acceptable performance for the standard this team has created since last season. It was a horrible outing, with passing troubles, finishing troubles, defensive troubles... it was bad from start to finish, with the first goal being the only true Barça-quality moment we saw from the Catalans all game, with a great possession sequence being used to break down the defense. It was the only good collective thing we saw from the team. The rest of the game was built in the hope of individual brilliance by the superstars on the pitch, but even they couldn't deliver.
You can blame the schedule, the exhaustion, the Arsenal game coming up, and that all might be true... but they add up to about 5% of the reason Barça didn't play well. Barça didn't play well. That's it.
That being said...
2. La Liga is harder
Yes, it is cliché to say La Liga is easy, but it's foolish to come here and say the title contenders always played against spectacular sides in previous years. They didn't. But now, the gap between the best teams in Spain and the rest has clearly gotten smaller. The mid-table teams who were too incompetent to make a leap towards a fight for European spots are now way better and producing some great football. The new coaches that we've seen recently have done a phenomenal job in tactically improving the teams, that don't look innocent anymore when they play a Barça or Madrid on the road. Relegation candidates will always give you a tough time near the end of the season because they're desperate, but this season has shown that we're not seeing a champion with 100 points anymore.
Las Palmas was a clear example of the increased difficulty of the league. We saw a good side on the pitch, whose record doesn't come close to reflecting how well they actually play. They knew what to do going forward, and because of a bad game from the opponents, they were able to dominate certain periods of the match. As Luis Suárez said afterwards, sometimes in the league you have to suffer. From now on, Barça will certainly suffer more than usual. The league has caught up.
3. We will not see this team against Arsenal
And that I mean in all aspects. First, the starting lineup will be different, most likely the Gala XI, with Busquets, Piqué and Rakitic playing from the start. That alone makes the team better. Plus, the level of focus will be different because of the opponent, the competition and the pressure, and we all know that big-game Barça is a fantastic Barça, totally different from Saturday. Also, knowing Luis Enrique, he'll certainly use the horrible display against Las Palmas as a lesson and motivation for his players, who will come out at the Emirates ready to show that the last game was a fluke. Finally, the 'MSN' trio will definitely not have two terrible games in a row. That's impossible.
Do not worry. The real Barça is back on Tuesday.
from Barca Blaugranes - All Posts http://ift.tt/1oUhS00
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