There really wasn’t anything positive you could say about Sunday night’s performance against Leganes.
After a bright start to his tenure this season, Hansi Flick might’ve been forgiven for thinking, even at quite an early stage, that he was coaching this season’s league champions.
They were riding roughshod over almost every opponent whilst scoring sack loads of goals, but now, dare we say it, Barca are looking fairly ordinary.
Though he was absent from the bench against Los Pepineros, Flick would’ve seen an opponent who, whilst not exactly full value for their win, at least did what they had to do. In many respects, the opponent was incidental, just as when Barca were humbled recently by Las Palmas.
There’s a level of expectation in delivery when you play for the Catalan giants and Barca’s spine in particular was well below par in many aspects of a game in which they never really got going.
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They huffed and puffed sure, but that’s not really their way of playing, and being dogged and determined is all well and good but that’s a pre-requisite for any Barca player anyway. The absolute minimum that should be expected from anyone that pulls on the shirt.
The control and ball manipulation that’s become their hallmark just wasn’t there. Although you couldn’t say that the Catalans were headless chickens, neither were they calm or composed in possession when they needed to be.
Raphinha has had better days too but at least he led by example once again. He pushed, probed and prodded and was a whisker away from getting an equaliser for the hosts in the first-half.
We’re well beyond the stage of the season where we should be reliant upon his and Lamine Yamal’s match-winning contributions too, however.
A low block once again proved Barca’s undoing as five-at-the-back for the visitors ensured that there was no room to work in the centre of the pitch. Incredibly, the hosts had 80 percent possession in the entire game but couldn’t make it count.
What this meant in practice was that the ball was shuttled from one wing to the other ad infinitum, and Leganes – a team that hadn’t won away all season – were well drilled in their defensive duties and managed to repel most of what was thrown at them.
Collectively Barca were off colour when it mattered, with Robert Lewandowski and Dani Olmo particularly guilty of lethargy and wastefulness.
The lack of ‘rondo’ type passing in central midfield too, where short, sharp and accurate exchanges often bamboozle opponents, was never there. It was replaced by lacklustre and tepid fare that wasn’t executed with any sort of conviction – and that has to be a concern.
With the opportunity of edging ahead of next Saturday’s opponents, Atletico Madrid – who had drawn level with Barca earlier in the day – missed, it now puts the biggest pressure on an out of form Blaugrana against the form team in La Liga.
From streaking ahead at the start of the season and playing some really beautiful football, in the space of a few short weeks Hansi Flick’s side have dug themselve a huge hole and lot its heart, its soul and its mojo in the process.
