I was waiting to comment on Barca’s performances until after this match, and I wanted to see if the a concerning trend I had seen over the last few matches of last season and the first two in this one continued. I also realize that it is early days, three away matches, so not going to pull the fire alarm, but when there is a wild fire threat where I come from there is a “ready, set, go” warning system: “ready” meaning a threat has been identified and people should prepare contingencies, “set” meaning threat is serious and people should be prepared to deal with it imminently, and of course “go” is full on crisis…I see Barca being in “ready” condition that is starting to border on “set”…The main concern I identified was Barca’s increasingly lackluster press and counter press at the end of last year. Some people chalked it up to tiredness, which was a part of it, but another major issue was the lack of cohesiveness and coordination that was a result of Flick not refining and improving the press with more sophisticated schemes. I was hoping with a whole summer of preseason that I would see an improved press, both in intensity and in cohesiveness and coordination, but sadly I have seen the opposite. This, combined with lackluster energy on what pressing there has been, especially from our forwards, has allowed the opposition time to make timed runs and pick out timed passes over the top of our high line, which will always be vulnerable if the opposition is given time. In addition, and I pointed this out also last year, for all of FDJ qualities on the ball, he presents more of a defensive liability in Flick’s pressing scheme because of his relative lack of mobility and range which makes it easier for the opposition to play through the midfield once they have beaten the lackluster forward pressing. The Pedri/FDJ pairing in the press is just not working effectively, but the press has looked disjointed overall irregardless of who has been playing. The third problem is that while Barca is playing the same high line, Barca are NOT playing the offside trap (aggressive coordinated step up) with the same precision and aggressiveness as last year. All of these combined have resulted in Barca’s defense being more vulnerable this year AND Barca’s offense being less cutting. As I said, it’s early days, and we will see if Flick can make the improvements, but it is worrying that having had a full uninterrupted preseason with so much time to work on it, that it is so disjointed. The loss of the central pairing of Inigo/Cubarsi, so underappreciated by most last season, is becoming apparent. The lack of intensity up front in pressing from all of our forwards (the unwillingness to press 100 percent 100 percent of the time, to give the opposition that split second less time to look up) is rearing its ugly head, and our lack of stoutness in midfield is also. Time will tell if this is early season ironing out or signs of a bigger problem. The jury is out for me on this one, unlike last year, where I saw that Flick and the system were headed in the right direction.

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