Barca dropped 3 points against Malaga over the weekend. Before disparaging Barca's performance, it must be said that Malaga had outstanding defensive shape, attacked relentlessly on the counter, and deserved their win. Now for Barca, Alves gave up a bad goal on a mis-touch, but that shouldn't have been the deciding factor. Messi was disinterested in the first half. He was stationed on the right wing, and often he would hang towards the midfield line instead of joining the flow of attacks. He did not have a good workrate and he did not take on defenders successfully. He played better in the 2nd half when he was put in the playmaking center role, but his dribbles still did not meet his lofty expectations. Neymar was more interested than Messi, but his dribbles also were not beating defenders. He and Messi could not find their connection. Suarez continues to have a great workrate, but seems to be an offensive afterthought. Iniesta did not have any impact on this game, although I wonder how much of that is his dip in form and how much of that is tactics. Rafinha had a high workrate and is not really expected to generate offense. Sergio had a fine, but unremarkable game. Alba played well, but for all of his accolades, I was hoping for a bit more out of him on offense (probably unfair, I know). PIque and Mathieu played fine in the middle and were often defending the counter in huge space - not an easy task. Bravo was not at fault on the goal and otherwise made some good saves.
There were several tough offsides calls against Barca. Still though, they had tons of trouble breaking down the Malaga defense. With Iniesta's dip in form and Suarez still struggling to find his proper role and see runs, Barca has become very dependent on Neymar and Messi breaking down defenses from the wing. This isn't a terrible strategy since they're both amazing, but against well-disciplined and talented defenses, the lack of a plan in the middle hurts. Lucho should probably consider working on some possession drills towards the middle between the lines and having SNM make diagonals runs in behind the defense. Iniesta is capable of taking on a defender and finding these runs, but it's not clear if anyone else on the team can do so (this used to be Xavi). Rakitic may be able to do this and give the offense some better attacking options, and having Masch at DMF play long balls over the top may be a better option than Sergio who helps very much in possession, but typically does not provide incisive passing. At the end of the day, Malaga is a solid club and top 5 in the table and Barca are probably guilty of looking ahead to MANC a bit. Nevertheless, Messi's lethargy and the lack of a backup plan other than relying on Messi and Neymar is a bit alarming.
