This game was sort of our season in a nutshell: brilliant stuff followed by stupid stuff.

1 minute ago, coco said:

Individual diving. 

Synchronised diving. 

Team diving. 

I bet they are in the shower right now, soap everywhere, slippy as f**k, and not one of them goes down.

And now you are sitting there with a soapy semi just thinking about it :)

 

3 minutes ago, Snedger said:

Weird how I didn’t really fancy our chances in Barcelona even with a one nil lead, but it’s sickening to have made it all but impossible with one absolutely unforgivable f**kup at the back. Who in their right mind plays a 40 yard pass across a crowded box against Barcelona. Christ on a bike.

Modern day football, there seems to be an obsession with playing everything out from the back, no matter how risky it is.

I'm talking about 75 minutes on when Barca started going for their goal. Christensen's mistake came from him not handling pressure well.

We weren't struggling Barcelona were just going around in circles Christensen just needed to boot the ball up field and we get back into our defensive shape

Great game from the lads. Morata should of come on much sooner. Moses worked his socks off,no complaints there, but he had 2 massive chances to create something and he wasn't even close. No end product at all. 2 goals probably required at camp nou

Right now everyone is pissed off, but give it a while when everyone cools down and we'll be talking about how good our performance was. Because it was a fantastic performance, we completely shut their attack down and we actually had better chances than they did.

Best performance of the season for me, just above the United match. 

Edited February 20, 20188 yr by Slojo

Disappointed with that to be honest, we left that one behind us. However, based on tonight's performance, I'm more confident of us picking up a positive result in Barcelona than I was before tonight.

I’m still f**king livid. We deserved to win that game. F********************CK!!!

We played well and I am a bit gutted that we never won. The return leg really looks like a mountain to climb. You never know though...

I dont understan why everyone is blaming christensen . If that was kante  instead of fab we would have bben fine.Fab is just an immobile f**k and made things worse by pointing to azpi to get the ball which is why he dived in. If only Conte had brought on drinkwater earlier.

Never thought i would be saying this but we might need BAKAYOKO in the nou camp

2 minutes ago, Slojo said:

Christensen was fantastic, I don't think anyone is criticising his performance, just the mistake he made and his passing alone. Against Barcelona it's very hard to keep possession so he really had his hardest challenge yet and he got exposed for it. 

Besides that he was solid as a rock as always. 

Problem is with no target man its a hard situation to be, punt it up field and the fans moan with ball coming back. At least with a front man there is a chance of him drawing a foul, holding the ball etc.

3 minutes ago, TheBluesBrother said:

We gave it to them on a plate. Christensen messed up and Dave couldn't save the error and they scored. They have the away goal which gives them the advantage. We should have won 3-0. The referee was a plonker and gave nearly everything to Barca. We defended brilliantly until that lapse but we need a target man upfront. We were under pressure for far too long. Better result than I thought but it was a game of what may have been. The Nou Camp is terrifying. We will have to play out of our skins again and maybe Willian or Hazard will have more luck. I'd play Giroud in the second leg.

Agree it will be tough at the Nou Camp, yet with their fans they will still have to come at us.

Stunned Giroud our striker in form was not brought on.

Just now, The Don Antonio said:

I dont understan why everyone is blaming christensen . If that was kante  instead of fab we would have bben fine.Fab is just an immobile f**k and made things worse by pointing to azpi to get the ball which is why he dived in. If only Conte had brought on drinkwater earlier.

Never thought i would be saying this but we might need BAKAYOKO in the nou camp

THIS. 

Courtois He was pathetic for their goal.

Moses Not too bad.

Alonso Not too bad.

Christensen What the f**k man.

Dave Impeccable.

Rudiger Good.

Kante Very good.

Fabregas Disciplined. His free-kicks drive me insane. Not in a good way.

Hazard Good.

Willian Incredible.

Pedro Runs around a lot.

4 minutes ago, Slojo said:

Playing it out from the back isn't the problem, if we just cleared the ball all the time Barcelona would have a lot more possession. 

The issue is Christensen struggles in that aspect, every other area he's fine with. He's our best defender at 21 years of age, it's just his distribution is very poor and he'll always struggle playing the ball out from the back. If you watch Christensen on the ball compared to off the ball it's like Jekyll and Hyde it really is, very poor on the ball but very good off it. 

You are 100% correct. I blame it not on poor technique but more on him not being fully concentrated and nor being fully concentrated (with the ball).

just read pages on this thread around the time the lineup was unveiled, as well as WAGNH's lineup thread, everyone was going "we already lose" "Conte's fault" "we are dead", and my personal favourite "this is Conte's resignation letter", all this because he decided to deploy false 9. regardless whether you think the outcome was good/bad, I must say the negativity was disgusting really coming from so called "supporters"

1 minute ago, Slojo said:

Right now everyone is pissed off, but give it a while when everyone cools down and we'll be talking about how good our performance was. Because it was a fantastic performance, we completely shut their attack down and we actually had better chances than they did.

Best performance of the season for me, just above the United match. 

I hear you, mate. For me, too. But this goal really crushed my spirits, more so that we gave it to them on a platter.

Mostly I feel bad because 1-0 would've been perfect. Now we need to score at Nou Camp, not that is a bad thing but Velverde's Barca is nothing like Pep's Barca. 

They are not like all out attack to win for the sake of winning. They can hold a lead too. And for the little moments we attacked after 1-1, we looked shaky when they counter and if was someone better than Vidal, could've been ugly.

Shame we gave them a goal and they didn't earn it. We really deserved ours. Still, hope you tossers roasting the line up will shut up now. 

 

Was a perfect game plan bar one mistake :(

4 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

And now you are sitting there with a soapy semi just thinking about it :)

 

Good effort. Did not get embarrassed for sure. However that away goal is a killer. Really hurts our chances. We needed a perfect game and some luck.  Two post hits and a mistake to gift them a goal is not that. 

Think we go out at the camp nou. Real shame that is. Went better than I expected though.

I'm just so mad at Christensen for that pass but I also know Barca may have scored 5 more goals if it was Cahill starting instead.  AC just needs to mature a bit, he was nervy on the ball all game long.  He is a top class defender and showed it again today in defense...just the distribution that hurt.  

Up to debate does anyone think luiz would have made such a pass..not picking out Christiansen by any means despite what happened so I think he had a great game...just curious has to your opinions...

This was a good performance, but not the result we all wanted. Im hoping Giroud starts in the second leg to add some more hold-up play at front.

Up the Chels 

I feel fairly conflicted and find it pretty hard to sum up my feelings on Chelsea at the moment. On 1 hand, we were pretty great defensively, well organised and solid....

...but at the same time we looked weak in general and toothless up front.  I guess I just don't have confidence in this team to grind out a result when it is needed. 

Look at the power and leaders that we once had, JT, Ricky, Ash, Ballack, Lamps, Bison, Didz etc... While Kante is a grafter, i have no confidence in those around him to dig in and see us over the line. 

Personal mistake aside (although it was a f**king horrendous mistake, Andreas what were you thinking?), we did ok....but never had the power to take the game by the scruff of the neck.  And that is gutting. 

 

Just now, Womble said:

Up to debate does anyone think luiz would have made such a pass..not picking out Christiansen by any means despite what happened so I think he had a great game...just curious has to your opinions...

Don't think there's really any point saying would this player have done this specific thing. The game would have been different if Luiz had played.