Claudius wrote:
MistaT wrote:
Messi and Ronaldo have set the bar too high, if you're scoffing at Busquets, Rakitic, Alba, Pique and Ter Stegen. Those five would walk into almost any team around.
Yeah, Messi is so remarkable that it’s easy to think the rest are scrubs. I would replace every single one of our players with a Barca starter without thinking. That’s the difference.
Look to the bench. Artur is better than any of our midfielders. And Dembele has largely been deployed as a sub or against lesser teams this season, yet is a wishlist favorite around here.
Arsenal are not even a reference point, let alone the reference point.
What 10 of those Barca players did tonight was not particularly special or other worldly. Alba played one great cross and a few good ones, but also let Salah in behind him more times than he should have. Suarez did a couple of exceptional things but also fluffed a number of good situations. Pique gave away some cheap free kicks and let the cross field ball to Mane trouble him more than a more mobile centreback would have.
As a team, they're just not that impressive. Without Messi's genius the game would likely have gone differently. Fine margins and all that. And Liverpool were playing Matip, Gomez, Robertson, Henderson, Wijnaldum, Keita, Milner . . . These are good, solid players but not at all special or rare.
