After a brilliant start to their La Liga campaign, Barcelona now find themselves winless in the last three straight matches. A loss to Leganes and ties against Girona and Bilbao have cost the reigning spanish champions seven points.Thankfully for them, Real Madrid has also been dropping points simultaneously this season although a win in the Madrid derby later on today would give them the sole possession of first place. Although there are still 31 matches to be played for the league, the Catalans must re-find their winning ways if they want to win their very tricky Champions League group. Exactly what’s going on with Barcelona?
Defensive Woes
Defense wins titles. Literally. Throughout their 10 years of domestic dominance, Barcelona have allowed 10 goals in seven games just twice. Apart from this season, the only other time they conceded double digits after seven games was in 2016-2017 season in which Real Madrid came away with the title. This season, Barcelona center backs cannot seem to pick up their rhythm.
Pique’s form has dropped noticeably similar to the days where he had first started dating Shakira. Samuel Umtiti has suffered a serious knee injury which may result in a long time absence from the pitch. Clement Lenglet is struggling to find rhythm in his first few matches and often seems uncomfortable with the ball. Silly mistakes by both Pique and Umtiti have cost Barcelona some very innocent goals. Most notably, Pique’s blunder against Leganes last Wednesday. In the past few seasons, Umtiti had been Barcelona’s most solid and consistent center back. With his absence, it is crucial that Pique steps up and leads the defensive line like the experienced captain that he is.
Lack of Finishing
Barcelona are creating chances.. They just can’t put them away. Against Bilbao, they had a total of 20 shots with eight of them being on target. Messi and Coutinho both hit the post and Rakitic missed a sitter in front of goal in stoppage time. They dominated majority of the game but a lack of concentration off the ball and Vidal’s inability to close out his marker led to Bilbao’s goal.
A very similar story in their previous two games. Against Leganes, they dominated possession with almost 80% of the ball while creating nine shots, five on target. More notably, against Girona, 10-men Barcelona took 22 shots and half of them were on target. In other years, we had seen Barcelona struggle to create chances for themselves during their slumps. That is not the case this year. However, the lack of ability to finish in front of goal is concerning.
Incorrect Lineups
Valverde has never been the type of manager to rotate through players. A trait that seemed to work well for Barcelona domestically last season after a rotation-friendly Luis Enrique arguably cost them the league in 2017. However, the lack of rotation of important players was evident in the final course of the season when results started dropping including THAT night in Rome.
Valverde seems to be a bit more open to rotation this season but has yet to perfection the craft. Against a complicated Bilbao side, Valverde decided to give Messi and Busquets the day off claiming they needed some rest after playing four games in the last 10 days. Ideally, he would’ve benched Messi and Busquets vs Leganes in preparation for the game against Bilbao.
Bench players are getting the nod in complicated games while the starters continue to rack up minutes against less complicated sides. The art of rotation is a complicated one (just ask Juan Carlos Osorio) but when executed correctly, it has its benefits. If Barcelona look to compete for the treble, they’ll need to have their key players rested and with enough miles on their legs for April. For that, they’ll need bench players that are capable of coming off the bench and pick up where they left off. They’ll need minutes against some of the weaker sides to get that rhythm going.
The last time Barcelona had a negative streak like this was back in April 2016. In that instance, they were being dominated, they weren’t producing and the overall energy of the club was down. This time around, I am not that concerned. The team seems to be responding well after going down in the score. They pressure high off the pitch, move the ball well and create chances for themselves. If they can figure out their defensive instabilities and manage to put the ball away, they’ll be able to turn things around.
