Impressive performance by Celta, so that means they've come away from the Calderón (2-2), San Mamés (1-1) and Camp Nou (1-0) with 5/9pts this season. Sergio Álvarez has been in excellent form of late as well, he was brilliant v Depor and Atléti and now made at least 2 world class saves in this game (on Messi and Suárez). The trio of Nolito (really deserved that player of the month award for September!), Orellana and Krohn-Dehli keep performing on a tremendous level and Larrivey with his 7th goal in 9 starts looking like a great fit.
Ironically, Barça's MF has become their most glaring weakness this season, it just gets completely bypassed because it doesn't have the ability to control anymore and without the ball it isn't doing any better than last year's version (Rakitic is a step up in terms of energy and pressing, but the decline of Busquets negates that) -- only now will it really become clear how key peak Xavi was. With better finishing Barça could've won this game (again Messi of the past two years has regressed so much in his finishing, dito on the free-kicks), but that wouldn't have masked the issues they're suffering from: the burden of chance creation has been shifted almost solely onto Messi (and to a lesser extent the other two FWs) which is absurdly naive from Luis Enrique and so far it has completely missed the intended effect of strengthening them defensively without the ball, because regardless of the low amount of goals conceded (even though the trend against very top teams is already clear: 3 goals shipped both times) they have looked vulnerable because they are far less in control of most games. Guardiola always knew that this team's biggest issue was when they didn't have the ball, Lucho is trying to adress that by (unintentionally?) sacrificing the control they did have in favour of better preparedness without the ball -- and so far it's backfiring.
I called it somewhile back in this thread I think (or another La Liga-related one) that Barça would struggle in the big games (PSG, RM, check) and away games (Villarreal, Málaga, even Rayo, check) this season, but this one was pretty unexpected even though Celta have been excellent for several months now, stretching back to last season. They've had the Bernabéu now, but worryingly all the other top sides aways still to come apart from El Madrigal.
Kudos to Ancelotti though really, after that horrendous start to the season and with the influx of offensive players... he's still managed to make it work without stepping on anyone (influential)'s toes. That said, also not entirely convinced of them in the big games, but more out of defensive concerns alone rather than Barça where the issue is a dysfunctional spine.
those 3 years working under Bielsa gave Eduardo Berizzo all the tools to be a successful manager. In just 4 years he is making quite a nice career. This Celta team is playing some nice football this season.
Actually, rather ironically, Celta started playing very well and a lot like they're doing currently last season under Luis Enrique already, but in truth Berizzo has probably improved them even more so far. Excellent job indeed.
