La Liga 2018/19

Ramos is such a weird player, has 10 amazing games a season, usually in the bigger games but games like this he's a total liability and always has been.
 
Harsh 2nd yellow as it wasn't intentional, but dangerous play so correct by the letter of the law.
 
Real lost. Barca say a big "thanks you" to them. Ramos is such a fecker. Yeah, he scores a lot of important goals, but he is just a headless chicken most of the time.
 
After a quick Google search it now looks like Ramos is joint 2nd for most red cards during a players career
 
Skills said:
So is that 75 matches he's missed purely through suspensions? That's almost 2 seasons :lol:
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Not all his reds carried a 3 match ban.




On another note, Barca are going to win the league despite being shit for most of it. La Liga this season feels like the 2010/11 EPL season. The least shit team wins.
 
Last night's performance is why lots of Barca fans want Valverde out, although in this particular instance I'd try to give him a shred of doubt that the players weren't putting in 100% due to having 4 really tough away games coming within 2 weeks. That Girona result is a Godsend for Barca. 3 games clear of both our rivals gives us some leeway.

There may be something to the tiredness aspect. It certainly caught Luis Enrique out in his second season, where Barca were coasting through all tournaments but his poor squad management led to a period where the players were dog tired. Going from 2 up at Villareal to clinging on for a point, then dropping points in something like 4 games in a row AND going out the CL all in a short period. It wasn't a surprise that when the fixtures went back to one a week, Barca went back to strolling to a league title. But I think it's more that Valverde simply isn't the right type of coach for Barca. If Pep was in charge, this squad would be doing infinitely better in terms of performing, I have no doubts about that. It's true that a lot of his successes so far have been due to Messi carrying the attack (again) and Ter Stegen being a wall at the back.

To be honest, I wouldn't be hugely surprised if it's yet another Doblete but another one off poor game in the CL which puts Barca out. Which would of course to any reasonable person constitute massive success since winning trophies is what it's all about and would keep Valverde in a job. But the performances aren't what they should be. A better coach could do much more with this squad, I feel.
 
zkap said:
I would be able to stomach this kind of performance if I knew the team was focused on upcoming games and saving their strength.

But sadly, this isn't the case. They're just exhausted. Suarez and Rakitić play all the time, why did they have to be subbed in last night? As bad as Valverde is in making this team play attractive football, he's even worse in managing the team's efforts over the course of the season.

We reach the most crucial part of the season deflated. If we underperform in the next four games, we can be eliminated from both cup competitions and put the league title in question. If we perform well, we could book a place in the cup final, get one foot in the Champions League quarter finals and stop Madrid from reducing the gap in the league.

So, the most crucial run of games we've had this season and we arrived to this point without energy and playing poorly. This is what management is about, this right here, what's happening to us now. A manager is supposed to make sure we aren't in this state when it matters most, but Valverde's ineptitude means that his most important players (Messi, Suarez, Rakitić) play all the time and now we are where we are.

Any team that plays us at a later date in the season has a good shot at beating us. Roma did so last season, now if Lyon don't do the same, the next team will. I hope we can at least eliminate Madrid in the Copa so we have a Final to look forward to later in the season.
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To be fair Valverde has rested a lot of players sufficiently this year. All of his top players have played lesser minutes this Jan as opposed to previous years and he's been resting players in one legs of most CDR ties as well. He doesn't rotate Suarez enough though but that's also due to a lack of options.
 
Are Valencia ever going to wake up this season, yet another draw, their 14th of the league season.
 
Sevilla seem to be in real slump now.....losing 1-0 to Villareal now. Seems goals have dried up for Andre Silva.

Would watch out for Real Sociedad, been in great form recently with their attacking players finally turning up this season. Can see them getting 4th.
 
FootballHQ said:
Sevilla seem to be in real slump now.....losing 1-0 to Villareal now. Seems goals have dried up for Andre Silva.
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Tbf the only shocking thing about that was that he was actually scoring them for a while.

Valencia have been so shit this season but somehow they’re still with a chance of getting CL football. I’d love to see Getafe or Alaves getting it ahead of Sevilla and Valencia.
 
Wow Villareal wins a game in La Liga for first time since about 2016. 3-0 aswell. :eek::lol:
 
FootballHQ said:
Wow Villareal wins a game in La Liga for first time since about 2016. 3-0 aswell. :eek::lol:
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Sevilla can't even use the playing on Thursday excuse as Villarreal did as well. Sevilla always flatter to deceive. I would not put it past them going all out to win the EL again.
 
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